How do you end something good?

Hi Amsterdam,

I could use some advice.

I've been with someone for a long time. Longer than some of you have been alive.

When we got together, we agreed I could always stay who I am. Lately, it doesn't feel that way. The things I care about most have become things I'm not supposed to talk about.

I'll be honest: I'm angry. Hurt, too. But we built something good together.

I just know it can't be what it was meant to be if nothing changes.

So I'm doing what you do in Amsterdam when something's weighing on you. I'm going to the café, buying a round, and asking whoever's there:

How do you end something good?

If you're at one of the cafés this November, the drinks are on me. Write your advice on the back of the beer coaster. If you can't make it, write it on any coaster, or a napkin, and tag me. Funny, wise, blunt, gentle. I'll read every one.

Thank you. Really.

Cheers,

Ben

Dear Magnum,

We didn’t know how to write this. So we did what people do. We asked. We sat in the cafés of your city and asked strangers how you end something good. This letter is what they told us.

“Start with something they’ll recognise.”

In a few days, you’ll be one year old as your own company. You said it would make you more focused, more agile, more yourselves. We believed you. We still do. You, more than anyone, know that leaving something good can be the making of you.

“Say thank you first.”

So. Thank you. In 2000, before you were even called Magnum, you took a company from Vermont with strange names on the lids and put it in more freezers, in more countries, than we could ever have reached on our own. You made it bigger. This year you even opened a new line for it in Heppenheim. Somewhere tonight, someone is holding a pint that exists because of you.

“Don’t rewrite the past.”

We won’t. It was real, and for a long time, it worked. So we made you something to remember it by: an album of our story so far, from a gas station in Vermont in 1978 to today. We left the last page blank.

“Be honest about why. Don’t invent a villain.”

There’s no one to blame. That’s the hard part. You’re built to make and move ice cream brilliantly, at a scale the world has never seen. We were built to say things that aren’t always convenient. We both tried to make that fit. It doesn’t, not anymore.

“Don’t make them pay for leaving.”

So we have an offer. It’s fair, and it’s a tab we’ll gladly pick up. Let’s talk.

“Stay friends.”

Keep making ice cream. Keep the credit; you earned it. Let us take the name, the voice, and the part of us we always believed could never be bought.

“Wish them well. And mean it.”

We will always be grateful. We hope you do brilliantly.

That’s how you end something good. You keep it good.

Ben & Jerry, with a little help from Amsterdam

Dear Magnum,

Happy first birthday. Independence looks good on you. On our first birthday, we gave everyone a free cone. It’s still our favourite way to celebrate.

You. Us. It was good, for a long time. We’re not here to argue about blame. We just want different things now. So maybe this year, you could give the ice cream away too. Don’t worry, we’ll pick up the tab: it’s a fair offer.

Cheers, Ben & Jerry