Almost Famous Popcorn CEO fearless in pursuing her dreams

CEDAR RAPIDS — Sydney Rieckhoff has always had large ambitions.

At 6 years old, she began working the cash register on her grandparents’ vegetable farm near Fairfax off Highway 30.

“I grew up around them, kind of seeing them as entrepreneurs, working in the fields alongside my grandma and coming in and working the cash register in their little roadside market and just being able to see what hard work and entrepreneurship looks like in the real world,” Rieckhoff said. “And that really inspired that, you know, I could do anything. I was 6 years old, and I’m running a cash register. To me, I was running the place. So I never thought that age could hold me back.”

A year ago, Rieckhoff made the leap to being the full-time chief executive officer of a family-owned, gourmet, ready-to-eat popcorn company based in Cedar Rapids.

And last month she was among a select group of guests invited to the U.S. Capitol to watch President Joe Biden deliver his State of the Union address to Congress.

“It’s one of those things that was on my bucket list, but so high on my bucket list that I didn’t even think about it happening,” said the former kid reporter for Scholastic News, who at the age of 9 interviewed most of the candidates running for president during the 2008 campaign, as well as pop music sensation Taylor Swift.

“I was able to sit on Taylor Swift’s tour bus (when she was in Cedar Rapids) with her … and hang our with her and her mom. I brought my mom,” Rieckhoff said.

It was supposed to be a quick 15 minutes that turned into a 45-minute conversation.

“It was one of the coolest experiences. It was really just a surreal experience,” Rieckhoff said.

One she said inspired her to be fearless in pursuing her dreams and love for entrepreneurship, and not let age hold her back.

Iowa Republican U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst chose the 24-year-old CEO, who co-founded Almost Famous Popcorn with her brother 10 years ago when she was 14, as her guest for the State of the Union

The pair met with and urged members of Congress to modernize the Small Business Administration.

"To bring more attention to small businesses and the support and momentum people felt during the pandemic,“ through efforts like the Paycheck Protection Program, ”continues as we try to adjust to this new normal,“ Rieckhoff told The Gazette. ”There is opportunity for bipartisan work to truly strengthen the landscape for small businesses across America.“

Ernst is the top Republican on the Senate Small Business Committee, and said she and the Democratic committee chairman Ben Cardin of Maryland plan to work on a bipartisan plan that would lead to a top-to-bottom review of the Small Business Administration.

Ernst said it has been two decades since the SBA was last reauthorized.

“The way small businesses operated two decades ago is very different than small business today,” and the challenges and technology is very different, Ernst told The Gazette. “This is a must do.”

Established in 2012 as an inaugural stand inside NewBo City Market, Almost Famous Popcorn Company has grown to become a multimillion-dollar enterprise, with retail stores in Des Moines and Cedar Rapids, as well as production facilities in Cedar Rapids and Sac City. Almost Famous last February acquired Noble Popcorn of Sac City.

With a team of more than 50 employees across the state, the company is working on regional expansion, with a goal of becoming the go-to gourmet popcorn brand in the United States, according to a news release.

Almost Famous can be found across the country, including in some Scheels Sporting Goods, Hy-Vee and Fareway grocery stories, Casey’s convenience stores and online at almostfamouspopcorn.com. The company also operates a storefront at 1121 3rd St. SE, Cedar Rapids.

Her parents have jumped in to help with business, which Rieckhoff stepped away from to attend college.

She graduated from Stanford University in 2020 with a bachelor’s degree in international relations, and spent a year and half in Chicago as a software engineer before rejoining the business. She also is a graduate of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program, launched in 2018, which Rieckhoff described as akin to “an accelerated MBA” program.

“It started out as a great hobby business and something that we were doing mostly to get some experience ourselves and to share with our community,” Rieckhoff said. “But when the brand started to grow and take off, I said, you know, this is something that I can really see a future. And so I think that’s what ultimately led me back to popcorn.”

The biggest challenge she said the company has faced is balancing sustainability of the existing company, “while being poised for growth and finding access to those resources.”

The company, for example, struggled to find equipment needed for expansion due to supply chain issues. Instead, the company acquired equipment through its acquisition of Noble Popcorn of Sac City.

“Supply chain issues, inflation, access to capital are all issues that we continue to feel today, in addition to recruiting and retaining employees and being able to offer comparable benefits to what large businesses can offer,” Rieckhoff said. “And we really need the SBA as a partner that can look forward, modernize along with us and offer the resources to the problems that small business owners face today.”

Rieckhoff said one thing SBA could do through reauthorization is offer programs where companies within similar industries could pool together to increase buying power and be able to offer more expansive benefits packages comparable to those offered by a larger corporation. That would help with recruitment and retention of employees.

A lot of small business owners, she said, had some of their first interactions with the Small Business Administration through applying for forgivable loans through the Paycheck Protection Program to keep employees on the payroll and their businesses afloat through the economic shutdown and slowdown caused by the pandemic.

“In some cases it was positive,” Rieckhoff said. “But, if you talk to a lot of small business owners, kind of overwhelmingly it was not. So I think there’s a lot of opportunity there for Congress to come together … to rethink the resources that are available for small businesses and really be a partner as small businesses navigate this post-COVID landscape and try to grow and continue to provide jobs for people across the country.”

Comments: (319) 398-8499; tom.barton@thegazette.com