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Pinky Cole is opening up about her rise and fall in entrepreneurship, explaining the lessons she’s learned since reclaiming ownership of Slutty Vegan.
The restaurateur and latest “Real Housewives of Atlanta” star is no stranger to the pitfalls of business. However, she fondly reflects on her journey as she regains her footing with Slutty Vegan. Ahead of her debut on the reality show, Cole appeared on “The Breakfast Club” to talk about losing her business and how she got it back.
When asked why she filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy, which allows a business owner to maintain operations while reorganizing their debts, shortly after reclaiming ownership of Slutty Vegan, Cole explained that she ended up with $20 million in debt at the peak of her business’s growth.
@pinky907 came through and breaks down what happened with her Slutty Vegan business and the lessons she learned while navigating the hiccups of entrepreneurship. Check out the full interview on @netflix ! pic.twitter.com/Ki8hxWxiGl
“At my peak [we had] 14 locations [of] Slutty Vegan. It cost me between $800,000 to a million to open up each location. I raised $25 million in 2022, the company got valued at $100 million. We [we’re] kicking in the middle of a pandemic, in the middle of a time where inflation is through the roof… Supply chain is crazy. So, like, there’s like, a 6x [price markup] on everything. We did everything that we said that we were going to do in business,” explained Cole to the show’s hosts, which streamed on Netflix.
Cole landed herself in hot water after growing her franchise with capital funding she could not keep up with. After assembling a team that struggled to thrive under the new responsibilities, and with rising costs to maintain operations, her bottom line plunged into the negative.
“The problem is that when you grow that fast, right? …You got people that do an incredible job in their skill set, but then you position them somewhere else, and they can’t do what you need them to do to take you where you need to go,” explained the 38-year-old. “So, as a result, we got $20 million in debt, right? And as a result of that debt, we were drowning.”
She added, “We were making money [in the] double digit millions. But if your payroll is high, and if you have all of these costs and everything is adding up, your bottom line is going to be red.”
As she tried to file an assignment for the benefit of creditors, a move she calls “bankruptcy’s first cousin,” the plan cleaned house so that she could, essentially, start fresh with the business. The result not only ousted investors but also her position as CEO.
Cole had to forfeit ownership of Slutty Vegan for several weeks. In that interim period, another step was to sell off the assets and pay down the debt. Although she bought back her business 43 days later, her entrepreneurship troubles persisted.
As she reclaimed responsibility for the company, creditors began to knock on her personal door to resolve lingering debt issues. However, Cole claims that she has no assets in her name, a “smart” move that she says prompted the bankruptcy filing.
“But smart entrepreneurs know is that you don’t really hold no assets in your personal name on paper. I ain’t got nothing personally and as it should be…,” she asserted.
While she continues to juggle lawsuits and keep Slutty Vegan open, Cole takes the lessons in stride. Still navigating the “hiccups” of sustaining a successful business, Cole insists she has become a better entrepreneur because of the hurdles.
“There’s so many things that I’ve learned as an entrepreneur in this process, and I’m so glad that I had the hiccups. I’m so glad that sometimes things didn’t go right, because it really only made me stronger and wiser.”
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