From 120 Employees to Infinite Employment | Valerie Jensen

Valerie Jensen employs 120 people with disabilities at the Prospector Theater. But she refuses to be known as a disability business.

"I wanted to be the greatest movie theater that happens to have this mission."

When Ryan Reynolds insisted on premiering his John Candy documentary there, Valerie knew she'd built something different.

The problem: A theater can't scale. Too capital-intensive. Too location-dependent. One theater, one mission, finite impact.

The solution: Popcorn. Tiny kernels anyone can turn into employment.

The Scalability Framework:
→ Send 20 bags to former employee in St. Louis who couldn't get hired anywhere—sold out at farmer's market instantly
→ Give students with profound autism a factory tour—sold out in 20 minutes at their school
→ 400 hotels carrying it, new factory producing 1,200 bags/hour

Valerie literally grew her own popcorn field to understand the business from seed to explosion. On the spectrum himself, she hyper-fixated until he could teach the biology of popcorn to anyone.

"Each silk needs to get pollinated to become a kernel. Moisture trapped in the hard casing—that's what makes it pop." The silks on her popcorn? Hot pink. Bio-mimicry she couldn't believe.

The COVID Response:
When the theater shut down—before mandates—Valerie kept everyone paid. These weren't just employees; they were people she'd pulled from basements, from loneliness, from cycles of despair. She invented Zoom peripherals for people with cerebral palsy. Created curriculum, games, art projects. Turned the "sheltered workshop" button-sorting disgrace into a gorgeous rainbow artwork now hanging in the lobby.

For UHNW families navigating disability, succession planning that includes diverse stakeholders, or impact investing: Excellence attracts excellence. The mission doesn't compromise the standard—it elevates it. And the real question isn't "Can this work?" It's "Can this scale?"

For founders who've built something that can't be replicated—and need to find the kernel that can.

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