From a Ninja Creami in Austin to 1,464 Target Doors | Frozen One

Speaker: 00:00
Welcome to Shelf Help. Today we're speaking with Alan Chen and Connor Menig, co-founders of Frozen One, high protein ice cream brand. I think in just a little over a year, these guys have already secured placement in some pretty major retailers like Bristol Farms, Wegman's, Central Market. Each pint packs 40 grams of protein, which I think is the highest in the category, under 400 calories, 75% less fat, 62% less sugar than traditional ice cream. Pretty amazing. So yeah, excited to get into it, guys. Maybe just um, yeah, first off, for the listeners that maybe aren't as familiar with Frozen One love is get start off by just getting a quick lay of the land, just in terms of kind of the origin story and the why behind the brand. More products in the lineup currently, what it looks like today, and then newer retailers that you just got on the shelf of recently. You want to send people uh their way, feel free to call those out too, and then uh we'll go from there.

Speaker 1: 00:53
Yeah, for sure. So Alan and I, we actually met in college. Uh, we're both from Wisconsin, met at UW Madison together. We're roommates, moved down to Austin, Texas at different times for different sales jobs. Um, and it came to January of 2025. So, just like you said, 15 months ago. We were just complaining about all the protein options that we were consuming. Austin, like many cities now, is big on the health and wellness, big on the protein trend, just you know, healthy products to stay, you know, lively in our everyday life. And we were just sick of eating the same protein bars, protein shakes, ingredients, high fat, high sugar, all kind of tasted the same. Um, so we kind of looked at each other, we're like, there has to be uh a better option out there.

Speaker 2: 01:32
Um so I when I moved to Austin in uh that was September of 2024, I was 145 pounds. And so I'm 6'1, so I was really skinny at the time. I was still like pretty skinny, but I weigh 175 pounds now. So where I'm going with this story is that um when I moved to Austin with everybody being into the gym and fitness and all that sorts of stuff, I was like, I need to fit in here somehow. So started eating a bunch of protein. Um, sorry, hitting the gym. And yeah, me and Connor were just complaining. We're like, there just has to be an actually cravable, delicious, enjoyable way to hit your protein goals. Um, ice cream seemed like the most logical thing. We uh went to some local stores around us, didn't really find anything like it. That night we literally bought a ninja creamy ice cream machine, which we still have in uh in our office here. We see we still have it memorialized, and sometimes we dig it out to uh to make a little test batch or two. But yeah, that's how we got started right then and there. Uh from there, I without telling too much of the story here, we grew really quickly, got into some local Austin stores in the area. We can dig more into that. But as of right now, we are now available at Central Market here in Texas, Bristol Farms, Wegmans. I just went live at Rayleigh's, um, and then Heinen's and Bush's and Schnooks as well. So some awesome retailers this Sunday, actually. So I don't know when this will air, but on uh April 26th is our official reset date into Target. So we're going into 1,464 Target doors, which is uh just an absolute dream. It's uh it's pretty crazy. Yeah. Fresh Times reset is also here. Uh with us, we're gonna be launching at Fresh Time. Um, we also, when we were at Expo West about a month ago, we uh we were one of the winners of the Kroger first pitch event. Um we're gonna be going into 200 Kroger doors here in Texas um and select uh Ralph stores on the West Coast. So it's been uh really just an insane year in terms of retail growth. It's been uh it's been incredibly exciting.

Speaker: 03:23
That's awesome. That's an amazing start. I mean, it's crazy how much progress you guys have made on the retail front in such a short amount of time. Uh so much. But yeah, let's uh dive into kind of those early days of the formulation and RD. Pretty sure you guys, you know, initially developed all three flavor recipes that you have in the market now at home with a ninja creamy, as you mentioned, over I think it was you know two months of nightly iteration. Yeah, in terms of like that, those early days playing around at the creamy, like uh uh what did a typical you know night in the lab, night in the kitchen look like? How many different kind of variables and ingredients and tweaks were you kind of changing per batch and how are you kind of tracking what worked and what yeah, what did those current early days of RD look like?

Speaker 1: 04:02
That was such a fun time. It was like uh the the ninja creamy was at my kitchen at the time. So Alan and I don't live in the same place. Every day after our day jobs that we're still working at the time, Alan would call me be like, all right, it's 5 30, like ready, and I'll be like, sure. It would be every night till 11:30, midnight. We got the ninja creamy and we had like six different cut trials to use at a given time. So it'd be come in, test the batches the night before, whether it's a protein iteration or flavor iteration, we'd test them all, um, come in and go, okay, let's make a tweak. We'd run to the store with the ingredients or try the ingredients we have. So it'd be like six different iterations roughly per night we'd do.

Speaker 2: 04:38
It's like, so anybody who has a ninja creamy kind of knows like it's not that hard to make something that tastes good straight out of the ninja creamy. Because the without getting too like nerdy science here, like the temperature that it comes out of a ninja creamy at is at like 20 or 25 degrees Fahrenheit. It's not that hard to get it, but the the thing is like having a product that refreezes correctly like ice cream is supposed to, anything that you make out of a ninja creamy normally, you're gonna put that back into uh back in the freezer and it will not scoop, it'll not behave like ice cream is supposed to at all. Yeah. So that was like a rude awakening at first. I remember like remember when we had the guys over the first night and we like we we ran a batch and we were like, dude, I think we like got it the first try. We like finally found a recipe online. We're like, this is not gonna be that hard. Like this is like exactly what it like. It tastes amazing. But at the time we were using, you know, like uh flavored protein powders where you put putting Oreos inside and like it is this was not a product that was gonna sustain long term. So learning actual ice cream science fundamentals that freezing point depression, all the things that make up uh the chemistry of ice cream was super important. Um, and that was a much longer process. That probably took a good few months for us to get a handle on.

Speaker: 05:42
Protein powder generally has like a fairly strong flavor, hard to mask. Sounds like you guys guessed a bunch of different brands and options before you actually found one that you're happy with. Like, um, are you still using kind of ultimately a protein powder that you just found works, or is that like shifted at this point? Or yeah, what's uh what is that what does that currently look like in terms of the core protein source used in the ice cream?

Speaker 2: 06:02
Yeah, yeah. We've shifted from obviously like a branded version to you know something that you can buy uh more en masse. Um for a long time we were using a whey protein concentrate. We pretty recently moved to a milk protein concentrate for a couple different reasons, availability being one of them. But we've uh we've found good results with ours right now. Like you mentioned, like the the masking of that flavor, like protein. And we have 40 grams of protein per pint, the highest in the set, like you said. There is like a flavor that you need to mask for sure. And so that's just being really intentional with our different ingredients that we use uh to flavor our product, um, making sure that it uh ultimately is a delicious product because at the end of the day, this is ice cream, it has to taste delicious, and I think we've uh really figured something out.

Speaker: 06:43
As much as you're um willing to share, I'm sure a lot of this is kind of the secret sauce, but just that technical challenge of actually getting packing 40 grams of protein into a pint while still making the taste and texture and all those things. There's close to anything else you can find find in the market.

Speaker 2: 06:57
There was a point with our product that we actually were testing 50 grams of protein per pint. That was like where we wanted to start at. Um, we ended up moving down to 40 for a lot of this reason. Like we kind of found 40 is the functional ceiling of a product, not only that uh we thought tasted delicious, had delicious text, had incredible texture, um, but also like the feasibility of running that uh at scale with our manufacturing partners without going too far into it. Like there's there's definitely like a protein ceiling that uh different dairies will run without, you know, like the viscosity getting too high, the back pressure, and like blowing gaskets at their facilities. And so we've kind of hit what I think is pretty close to the functional ceiling, but who knows? Maybe someone comes out with another one higher. And that's like we're really we're not trying to play the game of like if somebody comes out with a 50 gram of protein product, we're not gonna sweat it. I think the product quality is the top of the first thing. How do you decide what flavors to launch with first?

Speaker 1: 07:51
Yeah, so right away we knew we needed like a classic chocolate, see one of the most popular ice cream flavors. So we have Dutch chocolate now. The second one we wanted kind of a medium fun one, peanut butter chip. It's our first one that we added mix-ins with it, right? That, you know, amazing peanut butter flavor with with the chocolate mix-ins. Um, and then the third one was interesting. We wanted a wild card. Our friend one day was eating one of those Chobani flips where you can like put the crackers, whatever, into the yogurt. And it was like a it was like an apple pie flavor, wasn't it? Or like a cinnamon flavor of some sort. Um, and Alan was going to the store to actually buy ingredients that day and was like, interesting, that's a good idea. So that's how apple pie came out.

Speaker 2: 08:29
Started with literally like store-bought apple juice and cinnamon. And like, I remember I tried the first batch and I was I called Conor, I was like, You need to get over here. Like, I think that's like this actually might really work. Yeah. Um that was core three. We are expanding flavor lines. Um, I think I can say this now. We uh salted caramel crunch is going to be releasing at uh is our target exclusive. So amazing. April 26th, this is gonna be live, also, which we're so excited about. That's the first addition to the core three. So, like for over a year now it's been the core three flavors, but we are iterating on a couple new ones right now. Super excited. Yeah, there's gonna be new flavors coming out and they're gonna taste delicious. We're we're so excited.

Speaker: 09:05
So eventually you guys were in the, you know, in the lab in the in the ninja creamy for a few months. You finally nailed down the formulation, felt like you got something that was gonna work. Then you obviously started, I assume, started looking for a co-packer to actually really scale us up. How'd you go about, I guess, kind of finding the right partner for ice cream specifically from what I know? It's a pretty small universe that are actually ice cream co-packers. Yeah, what did that process look like for you?

Speaker 2: 09:27
Yeah, I guess so. We got really lucky in the early stage. I always say this kind of about ice cream in general. I bet there's a lot of categories that that are like this, but you either find a small coman who is comfortable doing like really small batches, or you there's just there's really small com-mans, and then there's like really, really, really big co-mans. Yeah, there's kind of not a whole lot in the middle. Um, and so we got really lucky that there was a pretty small coman, um, about an hour west of us here in in Austin. Okay. That we ended up starting and scaling with. And just like so much thanks to them that those early days of running like hundred pint runs and like these tiny little test matches and dealing with a startup like us. Yeah, no. Yeah, it was like it was certainly was not the most like unit economic efficient way to start, of course, but it was imperative that we had that like small local Kopacker that was willing to take a chance on us and help us grow up to the point where we are. So we got really, really lucky from that front. And honestly, I I don't know if we didn't have that like local, smaller facility, local does. I don't know how we would have done this. And I like I know there's plenty of people who don't have that option and just go straight to a larger co-backer, and that's sounds perilous.

Speaker: 10:32
Just get raked over the coals from a turns and pricing standpoint, probably.

Speaker 2: 10:35
Yeah, yeah, for sure. For sure.

Speaker: 10:38
I talked to a lot of brands oftentimes when they're going from bench top uh to actually larger scale co-packer and really, you know, scaling up from a commercialization standpoint. Oftentimes there's trade-offs that have to be made or tweaks that have to be made. That's sort of the formulation to actually be able to accommodate what that copacker's capabilities are and just to be able to support much larger scale uh production. Did you have to make any kind of trade-off sacrifices in that front? Or were you able to pretty much stick to what you had made in the kitchen with the ninja creamy and basically bring that formulation over to the Copacker and they were able to just scale it up from there?

Speaker 2: 11:09
Yeah, you know, there was some tweaks that needed to be made, but I always say this. I think like by some alchemy, we actually created a formula that like all of these different ice cream, the multiple different ice cream commands we've worked with to this point, they said it's just worked remarkably smooth through both their mixed side as well as the the the frozen actual creating a finished product side. Yeah, it's really been remarkable. I think that by I always just say by by some alchemy, we figured out a formula that runs really well at our protein concentration. Um they couldn't couldn't be happier on that front that things have uh worked out for us from a manufacturing side.

Speaker: 11:40
Looking back now that you've found found a great copacker, gopped off the ground with them for some other founders that are actually maybe in kind of the frozen side of things, doesn't have to be ice cream, but um any just like a you know a few things that jump out uh that they should maybe keep top of mind as they're going through this search process for copackers and or things to kind of watch out for that could trip them up along the way.

Speaker 2: 12:04
For sure. I just think you need to find, uh especially if you're in a situation like us where you know me and Connor don't come from a frozen food manufacturing background. We don't come from a food background at all. You need to find people who you trust. I think that trust is one of the most important things with the COMAN. There's definitely people out there that will take advantage of you. And so you need to find, I would definitely just be thinking about every time you go find a new co-man. I think one of the best things you can do is just ask for a reference check. Ask them, hey, can you give me a couple of the brands that you work with and connect me with them? There's probably not a better way out there to kind of suss it out because at the end of the day, as well as you know your product, I think that if you're in a similar situation to us, like that co-manufacturing partner is gonna know the industry so much better than you do. So you need to lean on them in so many different ways. And so finding someone who you could truly trust is just so important.

Speaker 1: 12:50
A partner that's more than a business transaction had Copac relationships now. We just learned from them. Like every call of Alan, it's not just make this much ice cream for us. It's how do we do this? Like what's the process? And and they they're really educators, which has been really good to find the right partners who are willing to do that.

Speaker: 13:04
From a brand identity packaging design standpoint, seems like this kind of protein ice cream category is starting to get more competitive these days as you were kind of thinking about you know, building out the brief for whatever agency designer or whatnot you work with, actually kind of build out the from a visual ID brand identity packaging design standpoint. What were some of the key variables that were top of mind for you? Funny enough.

Speaker 2: 13:26
So, our uh packaging right now, we're gonna give a shout out to uh Sam Kotlin. He's uh one of our one of our good friends from Beckham. Me and him and the team, we kind of largely designed it in-house. We didn't go to like a real packaging agency. We designed it in-house. I think so much of it was just figuring out what is essential to our brand and what is the real reason why the consumer buys us versus the 50 other ice creams on the shelf. For us, by and large, you know, like the the very first thing that's gonna catch their attention in our eyes was, you know, the big 40 grams of protein. So we had that front and center, stuck that right up front. Um, that was always really essential to us. Uh there was just so many design iterations that went by. We're probably not good people to ask about this, honestly, because we did like did not go the professional agency route as much as I love our packaging right now. I think that when we're we're in the middle of a packaging rebrand right now. Uh, I think that like going to an agency in the early stages is super smart. But if you're trying to be scrappy and cost effective, like we are just figuring out what is the reason why people buy your product and how do you illustrate that unpack.

Speaker 1: 14:24
What did the naming process look like? It took us forever to like the last thing. Yeah, it was like the last thing. We were like, oh, we gotta create a name because we got to trademark it. And we already having multiple recipes in the kitchen at that point. We're like, what's the name? What's the name? It's impossible to find a name. Chat GBT is not helpful, right? So we finally came across the idea of the chosen one being frozen one. That's kind of the the little ring on it. If if if people get it or they don't, um, that's kind of how we came across it. But I think more than that, it it has a very uh strong presence, frozen one. And that's kind of what we've seen resonating a lot more.

Speaker: 14:58
Yeah, it's memorable for sure. Yeah. In terms of the retail side of things, I think your first retail accounts were five or six Royal Blue grocery stores in in Austin, where you guys live. I think that was just like just a few months going from the ninja creamy test to getting on the shelf there. Yeah, tell me about that journey of getting on the shelf with those first few doors in terms of how you went about getting that meeting with the buyer, how you approached them, what the pitch looked like, and how you were able to secure that first commitment.

Speaker 1: 15:30
Yeah. So once we had our first product produced from the small coat pack grouts out of Austin in packaging, I right away we were like, all right, what's the first, what's the first store to go to? Um so Royal Blue, six, six locations downtown Austin. Nice little, like little small convenience grocers, but um, they've been great partners this far. But I just rolled in there with um a little portable freezer and a little sell sheet that has what our pricing was and what I thought it should be, um, ingredient profile, and then gave samples to them. I had to go multiple times because oh, the manager's not here, or I'll go talk to that roll blue grocery. Um but it took multiple times and until finally um I got the manager there one day and she was like, This is great, we'll uh we'll bring another team. And then I remember when they were reviewing the product, Al and I got an email one day, and they're like, Hey, we want to take you guys in. We'll order two cases each at each store. And we were like, that moment was like so exciting. We're like, holy crap, like we just got into a retailer in five months of the idea of this company. Um I remember like just like being like, We made it. Like the job's done.

Speaker: 16:28
Little little did you know it hadn't even started yet?

Speaker 1: 16:31
Yeah, yeah. The the backpack and self sheet aren't from what Target asked for, but uh yeah, it was it was exciting.

Speaker: 16:36
What did um what did your thought process look like back then when it came to pricing the product and and now year and a half, whatever later, has your approach approach and thought process changed at all since launch around pricing?

Speaker 2: 16:50
Yeah, it's a good question. Uh so the very first retailer we ever had Roadblue Grocery, we were and still are actually $9.99 there. That's our price. Obviously, the economics of a smaller grocery, it's a it's more of a markup from the distributor, et cetera. But um, I think it's a good like analogy. At first, I think we probably thought ourselves more like super premium and like pricing ourselves super premium. I think that was kind of a little bit more of the start to the company. And as we've grown with scale, we've realized like this is a product that is not just good in the downtowns of America, that doesn't perform well just in downtown upscale bougie groceries. Like I think it does fantastic there. We've done incredible velocities at Royal Blue. Um, but we really realize that this is a product that's ready for mass, um, like conventional mass accounts. We uh and with that, you have to adopt a process pricing strategy that makes sense. And so the majority of retailers now are between, you know, $6.99 and $8.99 on shelf. Um, and so we've definitely moved more into we want to be accessible to the mass. We don't want to be something that's uh that feels too elitist. We want to be something that, you know, the average person in middle America, you know, the the mom, the parent, anybody's ready to go grab, not just uh, you know, coastal elite brand. Totally.

Speaker: 17:58
What in that in those first few stores and maybe, you know, beyond Royal Blue, the f you know, the first few after that, what did um what did early velocity numbers kind of look like? And I I guess another question to build on that is like what kind of quantitative or qualitative data were you tracking in those early days in the first few doors you're in? That would kind of indicate, all right, we have something special here. We need to start really doubling down and and putting the pedal to the middle.

Speaker 1: 18:21
Yeah. So we uh right when we launched in Royal Blue, um, on average, pretty much the first year, we're doing 25.9 units per store per week across all three flavors, which was pretty impressive. That data was pretty much just collected by our invoice ordered drop-off. Obviously, I was every week I was driving with the portable freezer in my trunk, making the deliveries in my Jeep compass. And that's kind of the extent of of how we're doing it. And it was definitely got something that was hard to stay on shelf. It was hard to stay on. There was weeks where the managers were texting us, hey, we need restock, hey, we need to restock. And I'm like, again, it's crazy. But yeah, that's kind of how we tracked it.

Speaker: 18:56
Yeah, and then how did you um I mean, maybe it was just you know, selling itself, but did you was there anything you guys really focus on in those first few doors from a marketing and you know, demo standpoint and all the other things to really help push velocity? And like, was there a kind of playbook you guys are focused on, or is it things are just kind of flying off the shelf regardless? And it was more just trying to focus on keeping inventory on the shelf.

Speaker 2: 19:16
Tons and tons of demos around Austin. That was like definitely key in the beginning. I think like we still we still do do it do a ton of this, but I think building that grassroots momentum in your home base where you have fans, where you have followers, or you have a support network, it's so, so important. And I think just having a really that getting the base of that and then just also having a really strong product um in a category that people were were looking for. I think that um as well as you know some help from some local influencers, I think that that was uh that was really kind of the what propelled our sales and we've been carrying that momentum with us since.

Speaker: 19:47
Expanding beyond those first few doors. As you you mentioned, you guys just recently secured a place on a thousand plus uh in a thousand plus target doors, which is amazing. Yeah, tell me just a bit about how that target opportunity came about. Reality.

Speaker 1: 20:01
Yeah. So for Target, we were at an expo in uh Denver, Colorado in August. Um, and there was like their accelerator new brand opportunity team there. Um, and I'm like ran up to them. I was like, hey guys, we're frozen one, gave them the pitch. And they're like, wait, this is really, really good. Like, this is a phenomenal product. We love products like this. We'd we'll have to bring in something like this. Um, and it was just like their accelerator team and great conversation. Didn't hear anything for a few weeks, and then we got an email from the frozen ice cream buyer, like an inbound email from our website. That goes to the website, and we were like, is this spam for a second? Then we looked, looked her up. We're like, wait, this is legit. This is actually the ice cream buyer. So that's how the conversation started with Target, which was really exciting. Uh, we brought in a broker, started meeting with the head buyer in November, December, um, and then January when is when he gave us the official authorization.

Speaker: 20:49
Amazing. Once you got that order, that commitment, you obviously had to get ready to start producing a whole lot of ice cream. What a kind of a working capital operational standpoint. What are those next, I guess between, you know, that end of January until you know where we are today, you guys are about to launch. Like what did that look like between then and now?

Speaker 2: 21:06
For sure. That was uh, I always say like it was I remember the buyer explicitly being like, You're ready for like we're talking about 1500 doors here, like you're you're ready for this, right? And we were like, absolutely, like of course. Like we, you know, we we could we could go make it tomorrow, knowing full well we had did not have the ability to go do that at that moment. But it became a really like a like a scramble for fundraising at that point. It was very much we know we have all of this pent-up momentum, we have all of this demand. How do we actually go about and execute this? And obviously, cash is cash is king, cash is what you need to to go out and do that. And so if you were you remember that time, we like we first thought like obviously you could find like a working capital loan or something like that. Yeah, inventory financing. Yeah, we uh learned pretty quickly that just because we had little to no historical financials at that point and we were like less than a year old, most places just like weren't willing to to lend to us to take a risk on us. And so yeah, we just went really aggressively. fundraising front to that point we had raised a few hundred thousand dollars from local influencers angels um but we needed to put the pedal to the metal and uh we ended up back channeling through meeting with uh a bunch of different folks we got in touch with uh Adam and Chris over at the Angel Group which obviously you're a you're you're a member of at hear Adam yeah those guys took them out took a took a real chance on us I remember after our first uh after our first call I they were basically said hey let's schedule another one for the next day and we thought that had to be a good sign they really saw something in us saw something in the product saw something in the way that we presented ourselves and uh they took a chance and they led our last round so the folks over at Supernatural Ventures uh in the angel group uh they led this last round for us and we also had contributions from tonic ventures and Lucinda Capital and uh a bunch of great strategic angels but uh we ended up being oversubscribed for our first round so it was two million it's given us the opportunity to to get to this point have our target launch successfully and we're so so excited and grateful to them.

Speaker: 23:00
Of that two million round you guys just raised how much of that is going directly to supporting production for target andor just all things target launch related? I'd say probably when you put in all target stuff it's probably a good half of it right yeah that's what I would figure in terms of um just kind of you know I know you haven't launched in Target yet but I'm sure you've been interacting with them getting ready for launch over the past few months um you're you were in a fair amount of retailers before that what have you found unique about just kind of the way that Target works so far compared to other retailers what should other early earlier stage brands that are gearing up for a target launch keep top of mind based on what you've learned so far.

Speaker 2: 23:40
Yeah yeah I mean obviously the scale is just different. You know we're in a bunch of amazing partners but the scale is different. But also I think the intricacies of like how granular their data is obviously they have Rondell, their uh retail media network that was kind of our first time this is our first time working with uh a retailer that has a retail media network the level of granularity of data that you can pull from it yeah the uh the rondell side's been really really interesting to to learn more about shopper marketing retail media all that sorts of stuff so I think that that has been the most unique part of it and figuring out how do we maximize on that to the fullest extent because it's an opportunity that uh as amazing as Royal Grocery is they it's like it's it's an opportunity you don't have it uh stores like totally we have all these multiple banner opportunities lining up at once the ones you're trying to scale all together at the same time like how do you prioritize or kind of sequence these different launches or growth efforts with each one of these retail partners yeah it's a it's a challenge for sure like it's a it's it's a good challenge to have but it's a it's a challenge like making sure that there is dedicated resources going to every single account every single launch and making sure those are all successful. I think it's it's it's one of those things where when we started we did not expect to get as many yeses as we uh when we when we were presenting to all the retailers last fall we weren't expected to hit this many yeses. Yeah. So it's been about really scaling our operation scaling our marketing team having detailed briefs like strategies for every single retailer. This is our social post. This is the the ads that we're gonna run behind it. This is uh kind of having like a playbook um for every single retail launch and very clear we're we're still in the process of building that out and figuring out what works the best we're doing a lot of A B testing between retailers like hey did do we feel like this worked better or did this work better? It's a work in progress for sure but uh uh it's just I guess you got to stay organized on it.

Speaker: 25:21
Anything different you found in terms of what's really having an impact on velocity or is it still demos or are having the biggest impact?

Speaker 2: 25:27
I think packaging and product I think there's all the additional things that you can do to to influence velocity and you know there's shopper marketing influencer there's ads all that sorts of stuff but it really comes down to packaging and product those are the two things that ultimately the fundamentals at the end of the day. I think we've done a good job of getting our packaging uh and our product in a place that we're super happy with that our customers love that our customers are resonating with I think that's the most important thing.

Speaker: 25:54
That's the uh the one thing that all the uh extra stuff can't can't overcompensate for a lack of looking back at now if you had to just give let's just say one tip to another first time CBG founder that's about to start raising for the first time or their real, let's just say official first round if you had yeah one thing to one tip to give them what would that be?

Speaker 1: 26:13
One tip. Just don't afraid to be curious and just not know things. I think people genuinely want to help the right people always want to help those who are starting something. I think that's what thing Alan I noticed early on is like people are really just excited about founders who are taking a risk and doing what we're doing. And I feel like early we were like timid about asking questions and sounding like an idiot of about certain things that we don't know and whether it's fundraising or just the product and staying curious and maybe just being vulnerable to the things you don't know. People really go out of the way to help you. And I think that's what was really really helpful in just networking, finding the right investors, finding eventually coming across the angel group and right away they were like yeah like there's things that you guys are really good at and there's things that we can help you guys with. And that was really really exciting about that being early on but staying curious for sure.

Speaker: 26:57
Let's talk about hiring for a second. I think it's just been just basically the two of you full time up until very recently or still to this day you're obviously about to scale into a thousand plus targets, multiple regional banners, figure out how to scale a cold chain logistics piece of business, which I know is also super challenging um a lot of stuff going on growing super quickly. How are you guys thinking about building a team from here on out?

Speaker 2: 27:19
For sure. I think like that is quite possibly the most important thing that we can do right now is build out the right team around us. It's it's incredibly exciting. It's also like we're just realizing from it's really hard like it's it's it's really hard to uh to to build the the right team um and there there there's so much importance we added obviously I think the way that we're looking at this right now three main hires that we think if we get these three killers in place like we can we can kind of run for some time here. First is somebody on the sales side of things like a director of sales or VP of sales something like that. Somebody who you know not only is going after and hunting new accounts and has a bunch of connections and uh and the experience in that world but somebody also with retail execution like that being the other half of the job retail execution making sure promo plans are done properly making sure that the store list that we're given making sure we actually are merchandise on all shelves and all that sort of stuff we're learning the the importance of that and how hard it is for if that's not the only thing you're focused on and you're getting pulled in other directions, um, how hard it is to to properly stay on top of all of that stuff, especially with how fast we're growing. We've had a couple like inbound retailers in the last uh couple of weeks here and so having somebody who can really handle that side of it is I think is going to be key. Other two things somebody who has real frozen ops experience uh knows how to take a company from 500k in revenue to 5 million in revenue to 50 million in revenue and knows how to what it takes to do that. And the last thing somebody on marketing who really understands digital really understands a driving virality online. I think those are the uh three things that we're looking for. So if anybody uh anybody listening to this pod here knows anyone we'd uh we'd love to be introduced.

Speaker: 28:57
Perfect. Well that we'll definitely call that out in the in the notes too so people can that you can get some inbounds. Thanks. Actually on that front in terms of if people are interested what's the best place for people to reach out to you if they're if they are interested.

Speaker 1: 29:07
Yeah um choose an email. So my email is Connor C O N N E R at frozen dash one dot com and then Alan's is just Alan A L N A L A N at frozen dash one dot com.

Speaker 2: 29:18
Our our website also has an inquiries tab there. Our Instagram is at frozen one protein we're super responsive hit us up in any way and we'll we'll make sure to get back to you. Yeah perfect.

Speaker: 29:27
Just zooming zooming out a bit on this on the in the ice cream category overall and we talked about the protein ice cream category is definitely getting more competitive. How are you just guys thinking about strategically continuing to stay ahead of the pack as you guys continue to scale up and soon to be sounding like a leader in the category and starting to have to get in a position where rather than you know trying to trying to capture trying to trying to capture market share from others actually defending your territory.

Speaker 2: 29:51
Sure, sure sure yeah I think that the biggest thing for us is being fanatical about product I think that we're in a category where you could probably maybe say like a lot of people would think the product is not going to taste good. I think like when you hear the words protein ice cream like we always say this like it almost sounds like derogatory like it's like getting referred to as like a protein ice cream like it's not like it doesn't sound like it's supposed to taste good. And so being like relentless on making the product taste good making it have the right taste the right texture I think that that is the single biggest thing that we can do to stay ahead of uh the competition. I think that that is what has allowed us to scale so so fast to this point is because we have a fantastic tasting fantastic feeling product that's the that's the thing that we are most razor focused on. Specifically with ice cream that's just like it isn't it's ice cream at the end of the day. We're not a supplement company exactly like yeah it has to has to taste amazing.

Speaker: 30:39
What do you guys feel like the biggest risk retrieve at the top of your mind, you know, other than the obvious target thing what do you feel like there's like beyond that some of the biggest opportunities for the brand right now?

Speaker 2: 30:47
Great question. I think on the risk front uh and the way that we've been thinking about it is if we don't build the right team around us, I think that there's risk of just kind of getting over our skis if we don't build and we have an incredible network of advisors that have helped us so so much. And so that's been gotten us to this point. But I think where we are right now starting to build out the team around us that you know helps execute on all of the demand that we have I think if we don't build that proper infrastructure that's probably a bigger that that's that's that's the risk. The opportunity is like there's so many retailers right now where there is not only not frozen one, but there is no like a high protein ice cream option out there. There are so many like this is still such a white space. Yeah there's so many different formats and flavors that have yet to be touched by uh this category and so I think that there's uh an incredible incredible opportunity and it's something we talk with our investors and advisors about all the time like the ceiling on this is just so so high. It's just a massive category and so we're so excited to be you know one of the one of the people that are innovating in ice cream right now.

Speaker: 31:48
Last last question for you guys um you guys are just in the CPG world been in for the past you know year and a half or so in retail every day. So you're just watching things what's happening in the space closely outside of your category any particular brands specifically that have been peaking interest you guys are like looking up to andor just general categories that I haven't been peeking interest lately or that just seems interesting. Not that you know you guys are thinking about getting into them yourselves but just just in general things that have piqued your interest and look interesting.

Speaker 2: 32:14
There's a ton of brands that we admire. I don't know why this one came to mind but like what Fruit Riot is doing right now is in the freezer door also like yeah it's just a truly a delicious product and like it's just like they're they're fun branding. I I think it's obviously very different than our product but I think there's a lot we can learn from there's there's so many just cool insurgent brands right now. They're one of the one of the first that came to mind though I think they uh they're absolutely crushing and uh really idolize them.

Speaker 1: 32:39
I think what what Graz did with olive oil I think Graz just did the branding right it's a beautiful product. It's uh it's the first olive oil that people want to keep out on their counter when you walk into their kitchen. Yep. No it's not I always put olive oil in the cabinet but it's like you walk into people's households and they want it out on the counter just because the way it looks and it's it's a status symbol it's a brand symbol and the way they did that with their brand was really cool.

Speaker 2: 33:00
Yeah totally I have the graza bottle on on my shelf and I've got some uh the olipop frozen cherries in uh in my freezer right now I uh I'm on the same we're all we're we're all the same people at the end of the day we've all got the uh no but there there's so many brand crushes that we have out there yeah we can we we can go on and on for sure totally well yeah guys this has been awesome appreciate the time I think this has been super helpful for people what's the best place for to follow along with you guys individually and then what's the best place for people to follow along with the brand these days as well yeah uh so for us our Instagram for the company is frozen one protein uh you can find us there we uh we already plugged our emails but again it's uh mine is alan a l a n at frozen dash one dot com and Connors is Connor C O N N E R at frozen dash one dot com um I say your social also our LinkedIns as well Alan I like to post business updates things that are going on LinkedIn is obviously a a great channel yeah my personal Instagram is my personal ch e n and yours is minus c.men again we probably butchered that and nobody will follow our personal Instagram so that's fine.

Speaker: 34:03
We'll list it all in the notes people figured out well awesome gods appreciate the time I think that's think that's the pod

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