{"id":275570,"date":"2025-10-03T21:50:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T21:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/275570\/"},"modified":"2025-10-03T21:50:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T21:50:10","slug":"insomnia-cookies-ceo-made-millions-selling-his-company-to-krispy-kreme-but-has-a-warning-for-entrepreneurs-it-can-be-lonely-its-a-solitary-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/275570\/","title":{"rendered":"Insomnia Cookies CEO made millions selling his company to Krispy Kreme, but has a warning for entrepreneurs: ‘It can be lonely, it’s a solitary life’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Business success comes with many perks\u2014whether it\u2019s raking in millions<\/a>, gaining critical industry access, or simply feeling proud for scaling up a beloved product<\/a>. But reaching new heights also comes with some setbacks, according to Insomnia Cookies<\/a> founder and CEO Seth Berkowitz. Despite making millions and creating a late-night dessert staple for legions of college students, he\u2019s faced some hard truths along his entrepreneurial journey.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt can be lonely, it\u2019s a solitary life. It really is. [During] the harder times, it\u2019s very solitary\u2014finding camaraderie, mentorship, some sense of community, it\u2019s really important,\u201d Berkowitz tells Fortune. \u201cBecause I go so deep, it\u2019s sometimes hard to find others and let them in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Berkowitz has been scaling<\/a> Insomnia Cookies since 2003, when he was a junior studying economics at the University of Pennsylvania. Fast forward more than two decades later, and his company is now a fixture across U.S. colleges with many of its 350 international stores (and counting) housed on or near university campuses. Delivering warm cookies into the early hours of the morning, with some locations open as late as 3 a.m., it\u2019s a go-to for students coming back from rowdy parties or binge-watching TV in their dorms. And his idea has proved to be immensely successful: in 2018, Krispy Kreme<\/a> purchased a majority stake in Insomnia Cookies, paying around $139.5 million for 74.5% of the company. Krispy Kreme has since sold off its stake, a transaction that valued the business at $350 million in total enterprise value\u2014about double the worth at the acquisition.<\/p>\n

Having launched the company as a young college student, the now-44-year-old CEO had no previous business expertise to predict the ups and downs of entrepreneurship he would be confronted with. And despite achieving great success, it can be lonely at the top. That\u2019s why Berkowitz has increasingly embraced mentorship throughout his career, leaning on the wisdom of Krispy Kreme\u2019s current CEO Josh Charlesworth and ex-chief executive Michael Tattersfield to \u201cunlock some of the power\u201d he didn\u2019t know he had.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the last decade or so, I\u2019ve been much more intentional about that: meeting others, getting to know people who\u2019ve done what I want, what I intend to do, or something similar to what I do,\u201d Berkowitz says. \u201cI found that to be really powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n

The entrepreneurship life is \u2018not for everyone\u2019: Berkowitz cautions against pressure and burnout<\/p>\n

Entrepreneurship can be a life-changing gateway to quit 9-to-5 jobs forever while securing multimillion-dollar fortunes. And while Berkowitz loves being a CEO and all the responsibilities that come with it, he does caution young hopefuls about the weight of the career.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m an entrepreneur, I\u2019m a growth person. I do love what I do,\u201d Berkowitz says. However, he admits the entrepreneurship life \u201cis really not for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of pressure. I always felt the responsibility of raising capital from others. If you cut me a check, I really not only appreciate it and have tremendous gratitude, but I feel the responsibility to return your money to you, which I\u2019ve been very fortunate to have done with all my investors. There\u2019s a real burden with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then comes the possibility of burnout and fatigue. While Insomnia Cookies may be worth $350 million today, his company took a turn when the Great Recession hit. Insomnia hadn\u2019t reached profitability yet, and on top of their customers being financially strained, it was difficult to raise capital. Berkowitz says the business\u2019 angel investors couldn\u2019t put their money into \u201chobby investments\u201d like they once did. It was a dark time for the dessert empire that forced Berkowitz to constantly travel around the country to keep the brand\u2019s then-14 locations alive, with not a lot of profit rolling in.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s certainly the possibility of, it can be not going so well. You don\u2019t want to believe it. You don\u2019t want to own it. There were moments like, \u2018Man, I was a little delusional.\u2019 A lot of travel with not a lot of profit,\u201d Berkowitz explains. \u201cThere\u2019s real risk of burnout\u2026 If you don\u2019t think that\u2019s for you, you should be cautious.\u201d<\/p>\n

That stretch of years was hard for Berkowitz and Insomnia\u2014but the company ended up a success. The founder says by playing \u201cthe long game\u201d and weathering out those tough years with constant passion and innovation, the business was able to grow into the sweet-treat behemoth it is today.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

Fortune Global Forum<\/strong> returns Oct. 26\u201327, 2025 in Riyadh. CEOs and global leaders will gather for a dynamic, invitation-only event shaping the future of business. Apply for an invitation.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Business success comes with many perks\u2014whether it\u2019s raking in millions, gaining critical industry access, or simply feeling proud…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":275571,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[600,10360,64,17900,16778,18313,16720,29787,51157,1189,9604,607,2105,18315,3991,8709,420,61276,48158,69697,28359,11110,10405,67,132,68,44170],"class_list":{"0":"post-275570","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entrepreneurship","8":"tag-advice","9":"tag-burnout","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-career-advice","12":"tag-careers","13":"tag-chief-executive-officer-ceo","14":"tag-colleges-and-universities","15":"tag-communication","16":"tag-cookies","17":"tag-emotions","18":"tag-entrepreneurs","19":"tag-entrepreneurship","20":"tag-food-and-drink","21":"tag-founders","22":"tag-gen-z","23":"tag-investors","24":"tag-jobs","25":"tag-krispy-kreme","26":"tag-leadership-advice","27":"tag-loneliness","28":"tag-mentoring","29":"tag-mentorship","30":"tag-recession","31":"tag-united-states","32":"tag-unitedstates","33":"tag-us","34":"tag-young-adults"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}