Meet Julie Lincoln.
President of DohJoy and Launch Kitchen Brands.
"You have to be willing to accept when an idea, strategy, or tactic fails, learn from it, and make smarter decisions the next time "
Dohjoy is a low-carb, low-calorie, flavorful real bread. Inside every bite is an innovative blend of ingredients that delivers traditional bread flavor and texture with virtually no carb impact or glycemic response.
Q: What is a problem you are working to solve?
A: One of the most difficult parts of maintaining a diet is going to restaurants or cafeterias and not having delicious menu options low in carbs, sugar, and calories. This is when people frequently fall off their diets, and once they do, it's hard to get back on track.
Q: How will the Main Street Ventures Grant impact you and your business?
A: The Main Street Ventures grant will allow us to develop and test a low-carb, low-calorie sandwich bread that's suitable for food service establishments and produce initial batches of products for customer sales.
Q: What’s one piece of advice you would give a young entrepreneur in Greater Cincinnati?
A: At some point, your side hustle needs to become your life. Once you've determined you've got something, you have to make the decision to go for it. Go all in. It's scary and it's the hardest work you'll ever do, but it's worth it. Even if it isn't a wild success, it'll still be worth it. It's the best education you can buy.
Q: What does a typical day in your life look like?
A: Lately, I"m doing a lot of sales and production operations tasks, like getting customer orders, generating invoices, and managing deliveries. I manage the financials every day, and plan for our upcoming production runs. I help plan content for social media, events, etc. There are tons of needs with any new startup company, so it's important to have people you can rely on to carry the load. I couldn't do it without my two amazing business partners. We all have our roles, we all trust each other to do the work and we get it done!
Q: What is a lesson you've learned that has shaped your work?
A: Failure is an inherent and important part of the innovation process. You have to be willing to accept when an idea, strategy, or tactic fails, learn from it, and make smarter decisions the next time. Being afraid to fail, or beating yourself up because you took a risk that didn't work out is detrimental to the innovation process.
Q: What is next for DohJoy?
A: With this grant, we will open our food service line of products while we continue to grow our retail line. Our goal is to triple our current number of stores and expand into cafeterias and restaurants to serve more people, on more occasions, throughout the day.
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