Greg Komen didn’t dance around the love-hate relationship some people have with Cinnabon.
“It’s an incredible brand,” he said in opening his talk at Zillow headquarters in Seattle. “But it’s a brand people have mixed emotions about. They love it, but they hate themselves for eating it. I’ve been watching people stand in the Cinnabon line, acting like they don’t want to be there, they don’t want to be seen there, but gosh they love the product.”
Komen, the co-founder of Cinnabon, stopped by as the latest Zillow speaker and discussed developing the secret Cinnabon recipe, the initial struggle to find a mall to give the company a lease and the major growth that followed.
As with any product, some things worked, some didn’t and some tricks of the trade were learned.
“It’s about the location,” Komen said. “The more we bump out the better. We don’t want to be embedded in a food court.”
Hear more from Komen — and learn whether rumors of Cinnabon pumping oven smells into the mall are true — in the speaker video.
Want the chance to hear from more inspiring people in person? Check out Zillow’s job page; we’re hiring.
Previous Zillow Speaker Series guests include:
- TrueCar CEO Scott Painter
- Joel Spolsky of Stack Exchange
- Tom Douglas, chef and restaurateur
- Steven VanRoekel, White House Chief Information Officer
- Jay Inslee, candidate for Washington state governor
- Gabe Zichermann, author and consultant
- Rob McKenna, Washington state attorney general and candidate for governor
- Ronnie Chan, chairman of Hang Lung Properties Limited
- Hadi Partovi, angel investor, startup investor
- GrubHub co-founders Mike Evans and Matt Maloney
- Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn
- Adam Goldstein of Hipmunk
- Adam Lashinsky, author of “Inside Apple”
- Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA)
- John Cook of GeekWire
- FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski
- Gordon Stephenson of Real Property Associates
- Bill Gurley of Benchmark Capital
- Richard Tait of Cranium
- Adrian Hanauer of Sounders FC
- Steve Souders of Google