Launching Google AdWords and the December 4, 2003 Surge

A century ago, Jeff Braverman’s grandfather opened a peanut shop in Newark, New Jersey. By the early 2000s, the family business was doing $1M in sales and struggling to stay afloat. Jeff had a high-paying job in finance, but walked away from it to reinvent the business. His strategy? The internet. Something his dad and uncle knew nothing about.

What happened next is wild: an AdWords experiment that blew the doors off the budding online business; a slip on national TV where Rachael Ray accidentally renamed the company; 40,000 pounds of protest peanuts that crashed servers and landed them in the New York Times; a hilariously polarizing rap jingle; and a COVID surge that tested leadership—and humanity—every single day.

This is the blueprint for transforming a dusty, low-margin business into a profitable, $100M+ direct-to-consumer brand—while keeping it family-owned. It’s also a masterclass in earning trust, making risky bets, and scaling without losing your soul.

You’ll learn:

• The mechanics of a paid-search playbook that 10x’d orders overnight
• How to win over skeptical family members (and when to demand the keys to the store)
• The exploding-deal etiquette of buying a premium domain
• How an improvised rap-jingle can be stickier than a professional ad  
• How Nuts.com built a robust B2B business alongside DTC
• Crisis leadership lessons from the COVID floor 
• When and how a leader should hire their replacement

Timestamps:

• 00:07:08 — Cash registers, code words, and a Newark childhood inside the peanut shop
• 00:13:42 — The “build a website” pitch at a Jersey diner 
• 00:29:40 — December 4, 2003: from 3 orders/day to 30 
• 00:31:19 — Dad panics –”shut it off!”– Jeff doubles down on demand and ops
• 00:35:26 — Losing the storefront to a hockey arena—and going all-in online
• 00:42:29 — Jericho fans send 40,000 lbs of peanuts to CBS: press, links, and leverage
• 00:48:38 — Rachael Ray calls them “Nuts.com” by accident… and the $700k domain deal that followed
• 01:00:51 — The notorious Nuts.com rap jingle: how an earworm took hold
• 01:03:11 — Offices, microbreweries, and building a sticky B2B engine
• 01:05:08 — COVID hits: 70% call-outs, factory safety, and leading from the floor
• 01:10:18 — Handing the reins to a new CEO: leaning into strengths, not ego

This episode was produced by Sam Paulson with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by Neva Grant with research help from Olivia Rockman. Our engineers were Patrick Murray and Jimmy Keeley.

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