(Hint: He’d already said ‘yes’ to Akron)
words by Chris Horne; photos by Shane Wynn
During a commercial break, Brent Wesley came over and said he wanted to do a wrap-up, debriefing kind of thing after the show. “I want to explain why,” he said then darted off to his seat at a table he shared with his mom. I was confused.
This was at the packed-house watch party for his episode of “Cleveland Hustles,” the LeBron James-produced reality TV show about helping rebuild a struggling neighborhood in Cleveland. Akron Honey Co. had been picked as one of the handful to compete. Going by Wesley Bright, which is also the stage name for his justifiably popular Northern Soul act, he was pitted against a leathercraft couple who call the CLE home. I’d figured he wouldn’t have invited us to all come out if he hadn’t won, right? What did “I want to explain why” mean?
There were some tense moments during Aug 31’s episode of “Cleveland Hustles” featuring Wesley Bright and Akron Honey Co. (PHOTO: Shane Wynn)
As I’d expected, Akron Honey kicked ass. The sales target set by his entrepreneur mentor, Greenhouse Tavern/Noodlecat restaurateur Jonathon Sawyer, was $800, which is a lot of honey to move during a 7-hour pop-up, especially in a place where Wesley doesn’t have roots like he does in the AK. Well, he nearly doubled the target and added a skin care product line in the process. No surprise Sawyer wanted to invest $100,000 with our dude, right?
Before the show, we had a short interview with Wesley about the show. He said the point of the show was to get a big investment and start a flagship store in Gordon Square in the Detroit Shoreway neighborhood of Cleveland. I jokingly asked if that meant he’d be changing the name of his company.
“No, it would be Akron Honey Co. North. It’ll always be Akron,” he said.
Serious. It got intense, y’all. (PHOTO: Shane Wynn)
Sawyer and show host Bonin Bough sat down, and before they could get a word out, Wesley started talking about how, even though he’s happy with the sales they did, he thinks they left a bunch on the table. Sawyer lit up like a cash register at Christmas. That’s exactly the kind of thing he wanted to hear.
Then Wesley said no to the investment. #Stunner
“The whole set went silent. It was awkward,” he told the watch party crowd afterwards. Clearly, they weren’t expecting that.
He was nice about it but you could tell Jonathon Sawyer was, eh, unhappy about Wesley’s decision. (PHOTO: Shane Wynn)
On the show, Wesley explained that his family had a lot to do with it. He missed his two little girls and his wife, who he called on the way up to Cleveland to shoot that final scene. Even though she was saying she’d support whatever he wanted to do, he could hear something in her voice saying “don’t.”
It matched what he felt in his gut. This would be the wrong decision. On the show, he told Sawyer and Bough that he wasn’t ready. That had something to do it with, certainly, but he explained to the rest of us that he couldn’t just open a store in Cleveland. So much of what he does — what Akron Honey Co. is — depends on community involvement. This is a guy who got into beekeeping because he wanted to turn an abandoned lot into something good for his neighborhood. When he opened up other apiaries, he had the same goal: bring more life to Middlebury and work with the kids at St. V’s. That wasn’t part of the deal in Cleveland.
No matter how tired that dude is, Wesley loves to have fun and it always shows. (PHOTO: Shane Wynn)
“I don’t think Cleveland is going through a renaissance right now,” Wesley said after the show. “It’s already had its renaissance, and I could jump on that train, but Akron’s renaissance is just starting.”
He pointed around the room at all his fellow small business owners and entrepreneurs, shouting them out one by one — Sweet Mary’s, St. Augustine’s Soaps and Suds, Not Yo Daddy’s, NOTO, Akron Coffee, and on and on — and calling on them to keep this thing going. You could practically hear the strings section swell.
Wesley is not from Akron, but last night, he did the most Akron thing possible. He said no to the easy way.
“If I’d said yes, I would have had two to four investors,” he said. “But if I do this in Akron, a whole city has my back.”
There’s more he can’t tell us. He has plans. He always has plans. And surprises. The one thing you can be sure of now is that he wants you to be part of it, Akron.
PS — I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge somehow all the work McKenzie Beynon did to help Wesley create new products and get his pop-up store going. She was there at the watch party in her trademark hat, being awesome as usual.
Congratulations, Wesley, you did a great job. And a great decision to stay in Akron
If there were no real intentions of ever going to Cleveland, which is what the show was about, then he should have stepped aside and let another small business have the chance that most can only ever dream about. It was a good marketing ploy none the less.
Matt, I should have been more clear in my article, but Wesley was originally planning to take the opportunity in Cleveland when he signed up for the show. If you saw the work he put into getting that far and getting the investment offer, you’d know for sure that he was sincere in considering it. To hear him tell it, he only changed his mind on the way back up to Cleveland for the offer. By that point, he understood something he didn’t realize before: It would take him away from his family more and he wouldn’t be able to do the grassroots community-oriented stuff he’d been doing in Akron. It was just a different reality. So, his initial intentions were to open up a shop in Cleveland if he were offered the investment. The only reason he didn’t take it was he understood the situation differently after he had the experience. I hope that clears things up. I’m sorry if my writing was misleading. Thank you! – Chris
I respect the decision but think he could have taken the deal even if it was in Cleveland. He looked at it from the wrong angle. His production would have remained in Akron about 45 minutes away or less from a shop in Cleveland. Not a big deal. This could have acrually allowed him to help Akron by employing people there to increase his production for a larger market in Cleveland.
He said he was making the right decision for his family, himself and his business. You may have done something differently but that certainly doesn’t mean he was wrong. – Chris H.
This was a dumb move from a guy that barely has the experience or know how to run a store in Akron or Cleveland. This was just a wasted opportunity. You have an Investor that loves what you’re doing and he’s willing to give you 100k. I live in Cleveland and Wesley acts like Cleveland and Akron are 500 miles apart. It’s a hop, skip and a jump from Cleveland to Akron and you could have two small stores, one in Akron and one in Cleveland. Again, Cleveland isn’t a Foreign Country and it was a decision that made no sense if you really want to be an Entrepreneur. The Fount team acted the way an Entrepreneur acts when you get a six figure offer from an Investor that really supports your vision.
Jay, I’m not sure if you run a business but I do and I know there’s a lot more that goes into it than whether someone gives you money. The easy thing to do is take the money, but if it means getting into a situation that you don’t think is right for you or will cause more problems than it’s worth, you’re best to turn it down. You probably think Akron and Cleveland are more alike than they are because you live in Cleveland and are just looking at a map. I like Cleveland just fine. It’s a nice city. But it’s a different place. The distance isn’t all Wesley said concerned him. It’s about culture and here in Akron, he’s made himself part of one. Had he gone to Cleveland, his friends and fans here would have supported him, just like Akron supported LeBron even after he went to Miami. But he came back here to do right by his vision and we love him for that. Take care! – Chris H.
I’m very proud of you Brent! Family and community first!! You never know what doors will open next!
I just watched the show, and I do not believe he made $1,300 in sales that day. Something did not seem right for him to work that hard for his family only to turn down an investment because of his family. It’s a contradiction. Maybe it was the editing, but to the viewers his decision was “questionable.”
As someone who personally knows Wesley, I not only believe it, I absolutely understand the decision he made. He didn’t want to spend all his time in Cleveland away from his family. No contradiction at all. He knows he can make this work from Akron and if you pay attention, he’s proving it. – Chris