Episode Details

I sit down with Jenny Goodman and Alex McCrery, the co-founders of TILIT and the creators of The Utility Show, to talk about what it means to build something that didn’t exist before. We dig into how they’ve redefined chef wear, what makes a trade show worth showing up for, and how they stay grounded in community while continuing to grow. Their five rules cover everything from designing with purpose to staying focused, and why authenticity isn’t a buzzword, it’s the baseline. If you’ve ever wanted to start something new, rethink how you connect with your audience, or want to know what it takes to create with intention, this episode’s for you.

Five Rules for the Good Life is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

(0:00 - 3:04)

Hello and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I'm your host, Darin Bresnitz. Today I am joined by two industry innovators who have changed the way we think about chefware and culinary conferences.

I sit down with Jenny Goodman, the CEO and co-founder of Tillet, and Alex McCreary, the CCO, co-founder of Tillet. They're also the two brains behind the Utility Conference, an independent-minded alternative to some of the larger, more corporate conferences that restaurant world has come to know. We chat about their design process, how they stay true to their original vision, and how they keep grounded and their focus clear so they can build bigger things for the community that loves them.

Let's get into the rules. Jenny and Alex, thank you for taking the time to sit down to chat with me. Have you recovered from this year's very successful Utility Conference? No, like no.

Yes, but like in the best possible way. We're still buzzing over here and I'm still catching up on sleep because it is a marathon, not a sprint. As you brought together so many people for this new type of industry conference, what were some of the inspiring things that you saw from other curators in the industry? We're always inspired by the industry and that's why we wanted to bring a lot of different elements under one roof.

A lot of conferences that we see are a lot of trade shows in general. It's like we wanted to be the anti-trade show, right? Yes, we're all here for commerce and to connect and to be in community, but the programming should be really freaking awesome. So I think we took a lot of elements from a lot of events that we've just loved over the years and brought them all together.

The pitch competition was inspired by us actually winning a grant from Chase 10 years ago. Some of the trends towards healthy living in the industry, I think are super inspiring. And this year we added in a run in the morning where Philips here from Comedore down in Austin came up and led a run.

Instead of the old days of having a party, a trade show, and then getting plastered after together, there's these other things that people are doing that are building community while being healthy. And so I think that stuff's really inspiring. It seems that you have brought to life the best type of feedback loop where the inspiration just keeps pushing yourselves and other people forward to build on what's working, to build what's inspiring, and to create new things out of that.

One of the biggest keys to success in any business and a relationship, anything, is your ability to listen and absorb and respond. That's one of the keys that has been our business is that we listen to our customer, that we work with our customer, our community. It's more than just a customer.

And that