Innovation is an endeavour that requires a clear mind-space for contrarian ideas, possibilities on the edge of their time, and creation of something that has not yet been. Combined with the entrepreneurial mindset, it’s about taking responsibility for yourself, dealing with the hot-and-the-cold, the nice-to-have and the have-not moments, in harsh (not virtual) reality.
There are few limitations when you are equipped with the right mind-set. There are no boundaries, it’s a state of mind, an expression of self. We don’t always associate chefs with innovation, but they are as much entrepreneurs as product inventors or app developers. Imagine you are a chef for a moment. In front of you is a blank canvas of ingredients, sat on the chopping board, awaiting your spirit to infuse them with life.
They are your creative tools. It’s a simple set up but combined with the human imagination and an ability to execute, has the makings to create a unique piece of work to inspire. What chefs do is take an idea and manifest it into something new. They take a vision that existed nowhere else but in their own mind and turn it into something through their craftsmanship. That’s entrepreneurial thinking.
On May 10, 2013, Dominique Ansel’s did just this. He started selling a croissant-doughnut hybrid, which he called the Cronut, from his New York bakery. Nine days later, he’d registered the pastry’s name, and crowds were queuing around the block to try the new innovative delicacy. The pastry resembles a doughnut and is made from croissant-like dough, which is filled with flavoured cream and fried in grape seed oil.
On that night, a blogger from Grub Street, the online restaurant blog from New York magazine, reported on the new pastry. The post had 140,000 reads. The first day Ansell made 30, the next, 45. By the third day with than 100 people queuing, the line stretched back four blocks.
It took him three months and more than ten variations to perfect the recipe he’s used ever since. With its flaky croissant and custard interior and fried, sugar-dipped exterior, it was bound to be popular, but no one could have predicted the ensuing, pastry-flecked frenzy. The not-so-secret Cronut recipe is now all over the internet, but would-be imitators will need their piping bags and patience at the ready – it takes three days to make, thanks in part to the laminated dough. This is rolled together with a block of chilled butter to form layers and needs a lengthy rest in the fridge.
Ansel takes things to the next level, however. Each batch of Cronuts takes Ansel and his team three days to prepare. Day one consists of mixing the dough, then letting it ferment and rest overnight. Day two, butter is incorporated, and hundreds of sheets of dough are layered together before the dough rests again.
On day three, the dough is cut, formed into the Cronut shape, and left to ferment again. Once each has tripled in size, Cronut by Cronut is fried in grapeseed oil, filled with cream, rolled in sugar, and finished with a glaze. The secret of the Cronut has been solved. It takes three days and a lot of sugar, butter and graft. On my several visits to New York I’ve enjoyed Cronuts and coffee in his bakery café in Spring Street in Soho.
The creator of Cronuts isn’t just a baker. Dominique opened his little bakery with just four employees. Flash-forward to 2016, hundreds of creations later, a sister shop in the West Village and now across the world in Tokyo and London. He’s as much an entrepreneur as any tech rock star. Prior to starting his own business, Dominique was executive pastry chef at Daniel Boulud’s flagship French restaurant in NYC. During his six years there, he was part of the team that led the restaurant to receive its first four-star New York Times Rating and three Michelin stars.
He also spent seven years at the venerable French bakery Fauchon, where he led the international expansion and helped set up in Russia, Egypt, Kuwait and other locations around the world. Despite his ritzy resumé, the ‘Cronut King’ comes from humble origins. The youngest of four children, he grew up in Beauvais, about an hour north of Paris. His father was a factory worker, and the family couldn’t afford college, so Dominique began working at 16, training to be a chef.
At 19, he left home to complete a mandatory year of service in the French military, where he worked as a cook. After returning home he headed to Paris, not knowing anyone, and landed the job at Fauchon, where he worked his way up from a temporary holiday season staffer.
The New York Post proclaimed him the Willy Wonka of NYC, Food & Wine called him the culinary Van Gogh of our times, the most feted pastry chef in the world. With successful bakeries in London and Tokyo off the back of the Cronut, he must be doing something right. a croissant-doughnut hybrid that became the most virally popular pastry of its time.
Believe me, they’re really, really good. The Cronut offers all the softness of a croissant with the doughy sweetness of a doughnut. Sweet doesn’t really cover it - there’s a two Cronut limit, and eating any more would probably constitute a health hazard. Made with laminated dough, each Cronut is topped with a different colour of frosting and flavour, and each pastry is packed delicately in an elegant box in an elegant bag. If the only thing standing between you and opulence is five bucks and a long line, you wait. But it is well worth the wait.
Ansel has a portfolio of innovative products he’s created – for example the Kouign Amann, a Breton inspired caramelised croissant with tender flaky layers on the inside and a crunchy caramelised shell a crispy shell on the outside. Then there is the Frozen S’more, inspired by the Turkish dondurma, made with Tahitian vanilla ice cream on the insider that's covered in chocolate feulletine, then enveloped in honey marshmallow, placed on an applewood-smoked willow branch and torched to order.
This blog could evolve into a Masterchef critique, but I couldn’t help but think that his self-starter ambitions and product innovation provide some good entrepreneurship lessons. He is undoubtedly one of the most celebrated and innovative pastry chefs in the world and for good reason. He combines craft, nostalgia, analogies, complexity, surprise, shapes, presentation, contrasting textures, and wow factor into his creations.
What are the entrepreneurial lessons we can take from his craftsmanship?
1. Time as an ingredient In addition to focusing on ingredient quality and freshness, flavour, texture combinations and fun, novel presentations - an aspect Dominique obsesses over - is that each item be served at the optimal moment, when at its peak temperature, lightness, and flavour. It was the first time I’d heard of time described as an ingredient, but it made total sense, and it is one of his guiding themes.
Takeaway: Timing is everything for entrepreneurs.
2. Put emotion into your product One of the screening criteria for what makes the cut to appear on his menu is that the item evokes emotions, often nostalgic emotions tied to childhood, like the warm madeleines that Proust wrote about, or memories of summer camping the Frozen S’mores evoke, or the traditional little pastries from Bordeaux, France called cannelés.
Takeaway: Emotion engages customers is a key lesson.
3. Multisensory innovation Ansel’s creations have textural and temperature contrasts: S’mores have a soft honey marshmallow exterior, smooth and creamy ice cream inside and crisp chocolate feuilletine that separate the warm marshmallow exterior from the cold, creamy ice cream inside.
Takeaway: Capturing the customer’s imagination is vital for a startup with a new product to market.
4. Continuous experimentation Ansel is always searching for ways to make his products better, his mindset is one of radical thinking, working in an environment where products can evolve on the fly. This is a luxury other product categories can’t enjoy to the same degree, so gives him advantage.
Takeaway: Build a culture with a focus on continuous experiment and iteration.
5. Be a relentless learner Ansel evidences the appetite for learning seen in many successful entrepreneurs. Given how accomplished he is, you’d think there wasn’t much room for improvement, yet he feels there is so much more to try and do and create in his field.
Takeaway: Always keep moving, innovating, learning, and growing.
6. Use your team as a source of new ideas Ansel constantly brainstorms with his staff. The menu changes every 6-8 weeks, the team are coming up with new ideas together. He schedules regular team tasting sessions to give feedback on new menu ideas.
Takeaway: Use your team’s knowledge and experience as a source of innovation.
7. Fusion The Cronut pastries are not only a creative take on donuts and croissants, but a fusion of French and American cultures, combining a classic French pastry with America’s love for the familiar flavours of a caramel, chocolate and peanut combinations.
Takeaway: Keep an eye on, and an open mind, to serendipity of combining apparently unrelated ideas.
8. Be authentic If you study the early works of great contemporary painters and architects, like Picasso and Frank Ghery, they mastered the classics of their craft before they started to routinely innovate. Dominique trained in classic French pastry, it’s an invaluable knowledge he brings to bear in deviating on traditional classics.
Takeaway: Build your business on solid foundations before flying off at a creative tangent.
9. Trust yourself Dominique is always thinking broadly about the different ways he can innovate to make the customer experience different, memorable, and wonderful. In a recent interview, he was asked: ‘How do you know that what you’re doing is right?’. There was an awkward silence. Dominique put his hand on his heart and replied, in a serene, untroubled tone: I just know.
Takeaway: We live in an age where you can make anything possible, believe in yourself.
10. Be a bold strategist Ansel is not just a one-trick pony. There’s the DKA, his take on a Breton pastry, which is a caramelised croissant, with a soft flaky interior. There’s the frozen S’more, his soufflé inside a brioche shell and his shot glass fashioned from chocolate chip cookies. There is a new Cronut flavour every other month
Takeaway: Enjoy success in the moment, but always think about ‘what’s next?’
Summary
The Cronut shows that anything is possible if you have the energy, curiosity and mindset to create something new. Ansel bootstrapped all his innovation from creating synergy of ideas, customers and flair. No matter what space your startup is operating in, he offers a recipe for success.
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