Founders Project: Sure, you lead. But the right hire leads to success.

Daniel Lubetzky, founder of multibillion-dollar snack company Kind, talks navigating financial uncertainty and staffing for next-level growth with fellow Mexican-born entrepreneur Fany Gerson, founder of sweets company La Newyorkina.

- GRAHAM WINFREY

It started with a cookbook. When pastry chef Fany Gerson couldn’t find a book on treats from her native Mexico, she decided to write one herself.

“Most of the sweets in Mexico are part of an oral culture passed down from generation to generation,” Gerson says. “There’s not a lot of documentation about it.”

Published in 2010, the same year Gerson founded her New York City-based-frozen-treat company, La Newyorkina, My Sweet Mexico was nominated for a James Beard Award. Two cookbooks and one retail store later, Gerson is running a small business that pulled in $1.4 million in 2019. Her hugely popular paletas—ice pops made with Mexican flavors—inspired a miniature version called paletitas, which recently landed in Whole Foods.

Though Gerson’s paletitas are helping La Newyorkina reach new heights, the company has endured plenty of challenges. Hurricane Sandy destroyed Gerson’s production facility in 2012, and New York State’s stay-at-home restrictions have forced her to close her store during the coronavirus pandemic.

Enter Kind founder Daniel Lubetzky. Born and raised in Mexico City—one of many things he and Gerson have in common—Lubetzky knows what it’s like to create a product out of personal need. In 2004, after struggling for years to find a healthy snack he could grab on the go, he launched New York City-based Kind, which makes all-natural, minimally processed snack bars.

Last September, Lubetzky transitioned from CEO of the multibillion-dollar company to executive chairman. The new role gives him more time to back other entrepreneurs, which has included stints as a guest judge and investor on Shark Tank.