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

On this episode, we're joined by Alan Chen and Conner Mennig, Co-founders of Frozen One, the high-protein ice cream brand packing 40 grams of protein, under 400 calories, 75% less fat and 62% less sugar than traditional ice cream into every pint.

Alan and Conner walk through the formulation journey from flavored protein powders and Oreos to milk protein concentrate, and how they tested 50 grams of protein per pint but landed at 40 as the functional ceiling.

We also get into finding their first co-packer outside Austin, the in-house packaging design, and expanding from six Royal Blue Grocery doors (averaging 25.9 units per store per week) to Central Market, Bristol Farms, Wegmans, Raley's, Heinen's, Busch's, Schnucks, Fresh Thyme, a Kroger First Pitch win at Expo West, and an upocoming 1,464-door Target launch.

We break down how Target deal came together, the scramble to fund the first big order, the oversubscribed $2M round led by Supernatural Ventures and The Angel Group, and the important thing on Alan and Conner's mind right now.....hiring.

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Episode Highlights:

🍦 The Ninja Creamy origin story (still memorialized in the office)
🧪 Real ice cream science, freezing point depression and the refreeze problem
💪 Why 40 grams is the functional protein ceiling (50 grams blew gaskets)
🏭 Finding a small local co-packer willing to run 100-pint test batches
🎨 Building the brand and packaging in-house with a friend
✏️ How the name "Frozen One" came from "The Chosen One"
🛒 First retail: Royal Blue Grocery, portable freezer, sell sheet, repeat visits
💰 Pricing evolution from $9.99 super-premium to $6.99–$8.99 conventional mass
📊 25.9 units per store per week as the early velocity proof point
🚀 The Target inbound, the broker, and 1,464 doors in 15 months
💸 The fundraising scramble when no lender would touch them
🤝 The three hires that unlock the next stage (sales, frozen ops, digital marketing)
🔮 Why the ice cream category still has massive white space

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Table of Contents:

00:00 – Intro
00:51 – Origin story and how Frozen One started
02:55 – Late-night R&D in the Ninja Creamy
05:20 – The protein source and the 40-gram ceiling
07:49 – Choosing the three core flavors
09:05 – Finding the right co-packer
11:48 – Co-packer advice for founders
13:04 – Brand identity and packaging design
14:25 – The naming process
15:16 – First retail accounts at Royal Blue Grocery
17:00 – Pricing strategy and moving from premium to mass
18:20 – Early velocity and the role of demos
19:47 – Landing Target through a cold website inbound
21:00 – The fundraising scramble and the $2M round
23:30 – What makes Target different (Roundel, granular data)
24:30 – Managing multiple retailer launches at once
25:59 – One tip for first-time CPG founders
26:57 – Building the team and the three key hires
29:04 – How to reach Alan and Conner
29:30 – Staying ahead of the protein ice cream pack
30:39 – Biggest risks and opportunities ahead
31:48 – Brand crushes (Fruit Riot, Graza)

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Links:

Frozen One – https://www.frozen-one.com/
Follow Alan on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/alanychen7/
Follow Conner on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/conner-mennig-84a469170/
Frozen One on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/company/frozen-one/
Follow me on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-martin-steinberg/

For help with CPG production design - packaging and label design, product renders, POS assets, retail media assets, quick-turn sales and marketing assets and all the other work that bogs down creative teams - check out KitPrint.

Shout out to my friends over at Glimpse, the go-to partner for automating retail-related back-office operations and unlocking margin trapped in invalid fees and manual processes.

Transcript

0:02

Today we're speaking with Alan Chen and Connor Menig co founders of Frozen One high protein ice cream brand I think in just just a little over a year these guys have already secured placement in some pretty major retailers like Bristol Farms Wegmans Central Market each pint packs 40 which I think is the highest in the category under 400 calories 75% less fat 62% less sugar than traditional ice cream pretty amazing um 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 it just get start off I just get 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 if there's any that you just got on the shelf of recently you wanna send people uh their way feel free to call those out too and then uh we'll go from there yeah for sure so Alan and I we actually met in college 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 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 bad ingredients high fat high sugar all kind of tasted the same um so we kind of looked at each other like there has to be a better option out there yeah yeah so I when I moved to Austin in uh that was September of 2024 I was a hundred and forty five 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 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 sorts of stuff I was like I need to fit in here somehow started eating a bunch of protein started hitting the gym and yeah me and Connor were just complaining we're like there just has to be an actually craveable delicious enjoyable way to to to hit your protein goals um ice cream seemed like the most logical thing we are 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 a in our office here we see we still have it memorialized and sometimes we dig it out to a to make a little test batch or two but yeah that's how we got started right then and there from there I without telling too much of the story here 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 Raley's um and then heinens and bushes and schnoeks 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 a just a dream absolute dream it's a it's pretty crazy yeah fresh times reset is also here 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 we're gonna be going into 200 Kroger doors here in Texas um and select uh Ralph's stores on the West Coast so it's been a really just an insane year in terms of retail growth it's been a it's been incredibly exciting that's awesome man that's 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 thanks so much but yeah let's uh dive into kind of those early days of the formulation and R&D 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 few months of nightly iteration yeah in terms of like that those early days playing out the creamy like 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 early days of R&D look like god that was such a fun time it was like a 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 we were still working at the time Alan would call me like alright

it's 5: 4:13

30 like you ready and I'd be like sure it would be

every night till 11: 4:16

30 midnight we got the ninja creamy we had like six different cup trials to use at at a given time so we'd be coming test the batches the night before whether it's a protein iteration or flavor iteration we test them all um come and go okay let's make a tweak we'd run to the store the ingredients or try the ingredients we have so it'd be like six different iterations roughly per night we do 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 cause 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 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 a back in the freezer and it will not scoop it will not behave like ice cream is supposed to at all yeah so that was like a a rude awakening at first I remember like remember when we had the guys over the first night and we like we ran a batch and we're like dude I think we like got it the first try we like found a recipe online we're like this is not gonna be that hard like this is like exactly what it like it tastes tastes amazing but at the time we were using you know like uh flavored protein powders and we put putting Oreos inside and like this is 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 generally has like a fairly strong flavor hard to mask sounds like you guys tested a bunch of different brands and options before you actually found one that you were happy with like uh huh um are you still using kind of ultimately a protein powder that you found works or is that like shifted at this point or yeah what's uh what does that what does that currently look like in terms of the core protein source used in the ice cream yeah yeah we've shifted from obviously like a branded version to you know something that you can buy uh more at mass 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 we've found good results with ours right now like you mentioned like the the masking of that flavor like protein at I have 40 grams of protein per bite 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 to flavor our product 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 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 pie while still or as close as anything else you can find in the market there was a point with our product that we actually were testing 50 grams of protein per pie 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 as the functional ceiling of a product not only that we thought tasted delicious had delicious texture had incredible texture but also like the feasibility of running that 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 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 that's like we're really we're not trying to play the game of like if somebody comes out with a 50 g of protein product we're not gonna sweat it I think the the product quality is the top of the first thing with first 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 is our first one that we added mix ins with it right that you know amazing peanut butter flavor with with the chocolate mix ins 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 and it was like a it was like an apple pie flavor wasn't it like a cinnamon flavor of some sort 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 started with literally like store bought apple juice and cinnamon and like I remember I tried it the first batch and I was I called Connor and I was like you need to get over here like I think this like this actually might really work yeah um yeah that's awesome that was core 3 we are expanding flavor lines um I think I can say this now we uh Salted Caramel Crunch is going to be releasing at as our target exclusive so amazing April 26th this is gonna be live also which we're so excited about that's the first edition to the core 3 so like for over a year now it's been that 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 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 actually really scaled 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 mm hmm yeah I and 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 co man who is comfortable doing like really small batches or you there's just there's really small commands and then there's like really really really big commands yeah there's kind of not a whole lot in the middle and so we got really lucky that there was a pretty small command 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 batches 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 comparative that we had that like small local copacker 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 dust 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 copacker and that's sounds perilous to get raked over the coals from a terms and pricing standpoint probably yeah yeah for sure for sure I talk to a lot of brands often times when they're going from kind of the to actually you know you know scaling up from a commercialization standpoint often times there's trade offs that have to be made or tweaks that have to be made sort of the formulation to actually be able to accommodate what that co packer'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 are 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 co packer and they were able to just scale it up from there 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 combos we worked with to this point they sort of just worked remarkably smooth through both their mix side as well as the the the the frozen actual creating the 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 I couldn't couldn't be happier on that front that things have worked out for us from a manufacturing side found a great co packer got off the ground with them maybe just for some other founders that are actually doesn't have to be ice cream but um any does 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 co packers and or things to kind of watch out for that can trip them up along the way for sure I just think you need to find 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 co man 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 going to 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 is just so important a partner that's more than a business transaction had co pack relationships now we just learn from them like every call of that line it's not just make this much ice cream for us it's how do we do this like what's the process and they're really educators which has been really good of finding the right partners are willing to do that seems like this kind of protein ice cream categories 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 what not 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 so our uh packaging right now we're gonna give a shout out to uh Sam Cotlin he's uh one of our one of our good friends from back home me and him and the team we 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 going to 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 there was just so many design iterations that went by we're probably not good people to ask about this honestly cause we did like did not go the professional agency route as much as I love our packaging right now I think that we're we're in the middle of a packaging rebrand right now um 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 what did the naming process look like the last thing like yeah it was like the last thing we were like oh we gotta create a name cause we gotta trade market 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 G B t 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 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 strong presence frozen one and that's kind of what we've seen resonating a lot more 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 in Austin where you guys live I think that was just like just a few months going from 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 approach them what the pitch look like and how you're able to yeah yeah so once we had our first product produced from small co packer outside of Austin in packaging I right away we're like alright 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 groceries but they've been great partners this far but I just rolled in there with um a little portable freezer and a little cell sheet that has what our pricing was and what I thought it should be I'm ingredient profile and then gave samples to him I had to go multiple times cause all the managers not here or I'll go talk to that roll Blue grocery but it took multiple times until finally um I got the manager there one day and she was like this is great will uh we'll bring them to the team and I remember when they were reviewing the product Alan 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 of the idea of this company um I remember like just like being like we made it like haha the job's done little little did you know it hadn't even started yeah yeah the the backpack and self sheet aren't from what target asked for but uh yeah it was it was exciting 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 as your approach approach and thought process change it all since launch around pricing yeah it's a good question I so the very first retailer we ever had Road Blue 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 market from the distributor etcetera but 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 losses at Royal Blue um but we really realized that this is a product that's ready for mass um like conventional mass accounts we and with that you have to adapt a price 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 masses 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 that anybody's ready to go grab not just a you know coastal elite brand totally what it in that in those first few stores and maybe you know beyond or a blue the you know the first few after that what it um what it 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 alright we have something special here we need to start really doubling down and and putting the pedal to the metal yeah so we uh right when we launched Royal Blue um on average pretty much the first year we're doing 25.9 units per store per week cross 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 sick of that work it was hard to stay on shelf for sure it was hard to stay on shelf there was weeks where the managers are texting us hey we need to restock hey we need to restock and I'm like again it's crazy but yeah that's kind of how he's attractive 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 and those first few doors from a marketing and you know demo stamp on all the other things to really help push velocity and like was there 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 tons and tons of demos around Austin that was like definitely key in the beginning I think like we still we still do do do a ton of this but I think building that grassroots momentum in your home base where you have fans where you have followers where you have a support network it's so so important and I think just having a really that getting the base of that and just also having a really strong product in a category that people were looking for I think that um as well as you know some help from some local influencers I think that that was a that was really kind of the what propelled our sales and we've been carrying that momentum with us since yep as you mentioned you guys just recently secured a place on in a thousand plus target doors which which is amazing yeah tell me just a bit about how that target opportunity came about reality yeah so for target we were at a expo in Denver Colorado in August um and there was like their accelerator new brand opportunity team there um and I'm like I ran up to him I was like hey guys we're frozen one gave him 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 love to bring in something like this um and it was just like their accelerator's 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 it goes to the website and we were like is this spam for a second and 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 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 what did that look like between then and now for sure that was a I always say like it was I remember the buyer explicitly being like you're ready for like we're talking about 15 hundred dollars here like 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 execute this and obviously catch is catch is king catch is what you need to to go and do that and so if you remember that time we like we first thought like obviously you can find like a working capital loan or something like that I'm like financing yeah inventory financing and yeah we had 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 aggressive on the 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 a bunch of different folks we got in touch with um Adam and Chris over at Angel Group yep which obviously you're a you're a member of here at them yeah those guys took him out took a took a real chance on us I remember after our first uh after our first call 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 and the Angel Group they LED this last round for us we also had contributions from Tonic Ventures and Lindsay Capital and a bunch of great strategic angels but we ended up being oversubscribed for our first round so it was $2 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 you guys just raise how much of that is going directly to supporting production for target and nor just all things target launch related I'd say probably when you put in all target stuff that's probably a good half of it yeah that's what I would figure yeah 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 is kind of unique about just 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 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 Rogdell 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 and yeah the uh the roundel side has been really really interesting to to learn more about shopper marketing retail media all that sort 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 robo grocery is they they it's like it's it's an opportunity you don't have it at stores like totally yeah multiple banner opportunities ones you're trying to scale all together at the same time like how do you or kind of sequence these different launches or kind of you know yeah it's a it's a challenge for sure like it's a it's a good challenge though but it's a it's a challenge like making sure that there is dedicated resources going to every single account every single launcher 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 are when we were presenting to all the retailers last fall we weren't expecting to get 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 a kind of having like a playbook um for every single retail launch and frankly 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 gotta stay organized on it in terms of what's really having an impact on velocity or is it still demos are are having the biggest impact 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 sort 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 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 that's the the one thing that all the extra stuff can't overcompensate for a lack of that let's just say one tip to another first time CBG founder that's about to start raising let's just say official first round if you had yeah one thing to one tip to give them what would that be one tip just don't afraid to be curious and just not know things I think people genuinely wanna help the right people always wanna 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're like timid of asking questions and sound like an idiot 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 of the things you don't know people really go out of their way to help you and I think that's what was really really helpful and 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 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 I think it's just been just basically the two of you full time up until very recently or are 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 a 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 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 really hard to uh to to build the the right team um and there there's so much importance behind it 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 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 how hard it is to to properly stay on top of all 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 is gonna 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 it knows how to what it takes to do that the last thing somebody on marketing who really understands digital really understands 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 he he knows anyone we'd uh we'd love to be introduced perfect we'll I'll definitely call that out in the in the notes too so people can I can get some inbound thanks actually on that front in terms of if people are interested if they're if they are interested yeah um choose an email so my email is Connor CEO and an er at frozendashone.com and then Allen's is just Allen a L N a L a N at frozendashone.com perfect 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 make sure to get back to you yeah perfect zooming zooming out a bit on this on the in the ice cream category overall 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 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 gonna taste good I think like when you hear the words protein ice cream like we say this like it almost sounds like derogatory like it 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 this just like it isn't it's ice cream at the end of the day we're not a supplement company that really like yeah it has to it has to taste amazing yeah or to 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 great question I think on the risk front 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 out and we have an incredible network of advisors that have helped us so so much and so that's been got us to this point but I think where we are right now starting to build up 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 is 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 um 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 totally well yeah 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 sure you're just watching things what's happening in the space closely outside of your category any particular brands specifically that have been peak your interest you guys are like looking up to and or just general categories that I haven't been peak your interest lately or that just seems interesting not that you know you guys are thinking about getting into yourselves but just just in general things that have peak your interest and look interesting 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 are they absolutely crushing and really idolize them I think what what Groza did with olive oil I think Groza just did the branding right it's a beautiful product it's a 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 on the counter just cause of 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 yeah totally and I've got some the Ollie Pop frozen cherries in my freezer right now so I I'm saying yeah we're all we're all the same people at the end of the day we all got the yeah no but there's so many brand crushes that we have out there yeah we 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 you can find us there yeah we already plugged our emails but again it's mine is Alan a L a N at frozendashone.com perfect and Connor's is Connor's C O N N E R at frozen dash one dot com um I say your social also our linkdins as well Alan likes to post business updates things that are going on LinkedIn is obviously a great channel yeah awesome my personal Instagram is Alan dot c h e a E n n and yes is mine is c dot menig we probably butchered that nobody will follow our personal Instagram so that's fine we'll list it on the notes people will figure it out awesome guys appreciate the time I think that's think that's the pop thanks so much 40 grams of protein it's not that hard to get it making the taste and texture and all those things how do you decide what flavors to launch so eventually you guys were in the larger scale co packer and really maybe in kind of the frozen side of things from a brand identity packaging design standpoint it took us forever to like the Ninja Creamy test to getting on the shelf there expanding beyond those first few doors kind of the way that target works so far growth efforts with each one of these retail partners anything different you found looking back and now if you had to just give let's talk about hiring for a second what's the best place for people to reach out to you what do you guys feel like is kind of like the biggest last last question for you guys I have the Graza bottle on my shelf