“How do you manage a small business while being a dad? It’s hard…”

Rome wasn’t built in a day. And neither, of course, was Tom Bannister’s granola kingdom. After a career spent in advertising, he started Tom’s Perfect 10 in 2020, out of the New York City apartment he shares with his wife and three young kids. Three years, 37 flavors, and thousands of satisfied granola-lovers later, it’s his full-time gig.
And just to be clear: Tom wasn’t a cook or anything. He just really, really (really) loved granola. To compensate, he started sending out scorecards with each package to solicit feedback from customers—hence the name, Perfect 10.

“Bringing people along on the culinary journey was crucial in my learning curve,” he says. “I can’t overstate that enough.”
Nowadays, he juggles his personal and professional responsibilities by maximizing the two-hour window from 5 to 7 a.m., before his kids wake up. As for what he wears the rest of the day, between recipe development and ingredient runs?
“I like a more minimalist look,” he says. “I want to be comfortable, but I also want to feel sharp.”