Today we’d like to introduce you to Todd Sheridan.
Hi Todd, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
We hit the scene officially in 2016. But before that, I embarked on my own path of healing, which inspired the actual creation of Treehouse Juicery. While an undergrad in college, I suffered from those long nights typing essays and eating junk food late at night on a consistent basis, which caused a number of health issues for me, such as obesity, acne, gastric ulcers, hypertension, and pre-diabetes. Paradoxically, I was very young and ambitious, but I did not value the importance of healthy living, and lo and behold, I was faced with the choice of starting my new life after college with health problems, or simply doing something about it. So I decided that it was time for a change. I went cold-turkey vegan, removed starch from my diet, and drank a ton of my own juices and smoothies. I stayed the course for a few years and lost over 110 pounds within the first 10 months. I even reversed all of the health ailments without medical intervention. I FELT GREAT. So I never looked back.
If we fast forward a few years later, I’m still looking for a job, even though I have a bachelor’s Degree. I applied to many positions, but I couldn’t find the employment that I really wanted. So, I decide to work in a warehouse, doing manual labor, at a very large company. Little did I know, I was going to meet the love of my life, Nichelle Roane, the co-owner of Treehouse Juicery at that warehouse job. So one day, I met this lady in the cafeteria and she and I had the best conversations on life, food, fitness, relationships, politics, religion, science, and everything in between. Our passions were effortlessly in sync. We even discussed my weight-loss journey and she simply stated, “You should open a juice bar…” I was shocked because I never thought about starting a business around juicing. But it made all the sense in the world because I couldn’t find a job that I wanted, so why not create my own? I also knew the benefits of juicing. I didn’t need to learn about this subject because I was already living it. So I fell in love with the juice bar venture and also decided to go into business with the lady that sparked this vision.
Since going into business, we have had lots of new supporters, friends, partnerships, and mentors that have helped us scale to where we are now. We have a commercial kitchen to make the juice, did our own website and online marketing, graphic designs, and labeling, and to date, we have been the grand prize recipients of over $60,000 in business grants for juicing equipment and other expenses to help us scale easier. We were fortunate enough to join many business accelerator groups that focused on scaling and making connections. Now, we are selling juice at seven weekly farmers’ markets, and festivals, and have online juice subscribers that get juice weekly. We have built relationships with colleges, restaurants, gyms, and other neighboring businesses, serving our delicious juices and educating people on the benefits of eating and drinking for longevity.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The road to entrepreneurship has not always been a smooth one. We started the company in 2016. For the first three years, we were sampling at yoga studios, gyms, and pop-up events. Gaining traction was our main goal. Once we had people interested, it was time to find funding. In January of 2020, we won a pitch competition for 20k, then Covid struck. We finally had funding to expand but were limited to online sales. Our web sales were very inconsistent. We struggled to automate our email newsletters and our online presence. This slowed down our momentum. In 2022, we finally became profitable. Covid restrictions lifted and we were able to shift our attention to in-person sales instead of online; Our revenue increased tremendously. The type of product we have is one that customers need to see and taste. People love convenience and more times than most, they don’t want to wait for their juice. So selling in person was a game changer for us.
Another part of the juicing industry that people don’t think about is the amount of labor that it requires to prepare cold-pressed juices. You have to purchase and transport produce, wash and cut fruit, extract the juice from the fruit, mix and bottle the juice, then label your bottles, and cold hold your product until you sell. This process is lengthy and doing it with only two people can take a toll. Our struggle is meeting the juice demand of all of our customers and stores that are interested. So our next step is to acquire a larger juicer, called a Good Nature X-1 for 30k, which is a hydraulic press juicer, capable of producing over 400 bottles per hour. The Good Nature company is very reputable and we are planning on scaling with this new addition.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Treehouse Juicery?
Treehouse Juicery is a cold-pressed juice manufacturer and retailer based in Baltimore, Maryland. Our company is black-owned and operated by Todd Sheridan and Nichelle Roane. We started this business as a means to keep ourselves healthy and spread health awareness by extending our wealth of knowledge in our community and to our customers,
After testing the market for years by doing sampling events, and small pop-up shops, Treehouse Juicery is now in seven weekly farmers’ markets and will soon be in larger grocery stores coming soon. If you don’t feel like picking up the juice at the grocery store, you can order online and receive it via cold-shipping nationwide. You can rest assured that your juice will be fresh since we freeze our cold-pressed juice immediately after extracting it. Once the juice arrives and thaws, it has a shelf life of 7 days.
One question we also get is: “What is cold-pressed?”
Cold-Pressed means that the juice is slowly squeezed out of the fruit or vegetables using a gear or hydraulic press, which never heats or agitates the juice, helping the juice maintain all of its nutritional value, electrolytes, enzymatic function, and flavor profile.
We are most proud of how many returning customers we have, including children. We are adamant about providing a product that is healthy as it is delicious. That is why we strive to become a community that represents family, good health, and satisfaction to the taste buds.
Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
We have had many supporters along the way that made it a bit easier to get to where we are today. I may not be able to list them all but among those special individuals is the Center for Business Innovation at Community College of Baltimore County. The faculty there, such as Dennis Sullivan and Angella Kevas, hosted an annual Business Pitch competition, where Treehouse Juicery became the grand prize winner. Dennis and Angella have been very supportive in helping us prepare for the competition, and securing the start-up resources for our business to build its foundation. They also connected us with a great mentor and successful business owner by the name of Kwame Kuadey, who provided the necessary mentorship and education to increase our revenue and accelerate our business growth.
We are also grateful to have organizations such as the National Urban League of Baltimore and the National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC) in our corner. Both of these organizations have exposed us to many great small businesses like ourselves that are scaling, profound lectures and mentors from Fortune 500 companies, business grants, and networking opportunities that have positively affected our trajectory.
Another one of our support systems has been Andy Cook of Made In Baltimore, which is an organization that supports makers and manufacturers in the city, offering tools to help small businesses scale. Andy has shared his connections, resources, and platform to assist us in getting our product out there and building our brand.
Also, we’d like to thank Impact Hub, which is an organization in Baltimore that has created a space for entrepreneurs to grow. Impact Hub also granted us many resources, including mentorship from GoDaddy, which helped our online presence. We made connections there that led to us selling our products at the National Security Agency.
Last but not certainly not least, we’d like to give a warm thank you to the RadCliffe Foundation, which has funded many of the business programs that we have participated in.
I know there are many others that we are failing to mention but we are very grateful for all of our friends, family, customers, partners, and supporters that have believed in the brand and our entrepreneurial journey.
Contact Info:
- Website: Www.treehousejuiceryonline.com
- Instagram: Www.instagram.com/treehousejuiceryonline
- Facebook: Www.facebook.com/treehousejuice
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/channel/UChK7unhQThrQ0UEQP-W8Ngg
Image Credits
Godaddy
