Episode 8: Natasha Case and Freya Estreller
Co-founders of Coolhaus Ice Cream and Future Gin
SPEAKERS
Natasha Case, Kate Jaeger-Thomas, Scott Robson, Freya Estreller, Intro, Natasha and Freya
Intro
Welcome to Less than Likely a podcast featuring honest behind the scenes stories of real entrepreneurs and thir less than likely journeys in creating successful businesses. Kate and Scott chat with founders from all industries and stages in business development to bring you the real, the brave and the messy of building something larger than yourself while being human.
Scott Robson
Hey Kate.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas
Hey Scott.
Scott Robson
In today's episode we have not one but two guests, Natasha Case and Freya Estreller, who are the married co founders of Coolhaus, a Los Angeles based ice cream company that they started essentially on their second date.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas
What? That's amazing
Scott Robson
It's crazy. We chat with them about their journey from a single icecream truck at Coachella in 2009, to having multiple brick and mortar locations and distribution across the entire US before recently being acquired by The Urgent Company. And if that wasn't enough, Natasha and Freya also two of the four co founders of Future Gin, which is the first fully woman owned, operated and distilled gin in existence, did you know that?
Kate Jaeger-Thomas
I did not, that is amazing. Oh my gosh, I cannot wait to talk with them.
Scott Robson
We're really fortunate to be able to speak with co founders who really can share their entire journey from creation to acquisition, especially since it's not just about ice cream, but really delicious ice cream that I had been enjoying for years before meeting Natasha and Freya.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas
It's so good. I just had it for the first time admittedly and it is just delicious. It really is. I can't wait to try Future Gin too.
Scott Robson
Get on that because I have and it's a really really yummy.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas
Okay!
Scott Robson
Without further ado, here is Natasha Case and Freya Estreller.
Intro
Welcome to less than likely a podcast featuring honest behind the scenes stories of real entrepreneurs and their less than likely journeys of creating successful businesses. Kate and Scott chat with founders from all industries and stages in business development to bring you the real, the brave and the messy of building something larger than yourself while being human.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas
How many zooms have you done together like this? Is this something that happens?
Natasha and Freya
Actually a lot.
Natasha Case
We've gone through a round of like pitching a Coolhaus show in the pandemic. The second round was all Zoom so it was all this. A totally different experience. Yeah.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas
And such a different energy on Zoom. Especially like now we're so used to it. But at that point, when you're used to the like energy of a pitch in the room, it's very different. And then you get into the Zoom and you're like, hey
Natasha Case
Yeah,
Freya Estreller
And everyone's like camera off. Yeah.
Scott Robson
Don't look at me,
Natasha Case
But it didn't make it way more efficient.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas
So you're pros at this co-Zoom thing and co- a lot of things, I mean, which we're going to be talking about today.
Natasha Case
Yeah, of course. Yeah. Thank you for having us.
Scott Robson
So the question that we always like to start with is what makes you or your business less than likely?
Freya Estreller
It's funny because we were talking about this yesterday and Tash was like "All of it!"
Natasha Case
CoolHaus, frozen ice cream, it is kind of objectively, could be the toughest category in the grocery store. Although, some people say that, I would say like tell me a category that's not saturated and competitive and expensive and big barrier to entry. Like it's all tough but like I think notoriously frozen supply chain, frozen you know retail is extremely difficult even just like the physicality of it like. You're behind a freezer door with condensation and sometimes if you're not right in the middle... if you notice things at the bottom and the top they're like covered in ice, like it's just tough. And then we started when we were 25. We had no idea what we were doing, what we're getting ourselves into. We had no funding. We were dating like immediately...
Freya Estreller
Like we always joke like we had nothing to lose because I was like, we were both living in our parents houses, like those millennials literally starting CoolHaus with our credit card because we didn't have any money. So we were like we were like losers.
Natasha Case
We had an ice cream truck with no engine that constantly broke down. I love telling people like a great way to learn how a vehicle works is everything that could fall off of it. You know like oh, the flywheel fell off of the icecream truck.
Freya Estreller
We were like, what's a flywheel?
Natasha Case
I noticed I was like I could like it looks like a ski kind of you know. Like the steering wheel just like just popped out one time with them for like Giorgio Armani and remember like just popped off, they thought... Giorgio Armani thought they were on an episode of Punked with how many breakdowns we had. And with Future Gin, similarly, like just spirits/alcohol is really tough. It's definitely a world of white men, big money.
Freya Estreller
Yeah, they're not so much queer and female the brands.
Natasha Case
You know, it made me appreciate with Coolhaus at least ice cream sandwich, you're like here you go and then give me money. This is like you can't do that, you know, obviously with with alcohol, you have to go through the distributor, so they're not going to care about a small up and coming when they have much bigger companies giving them dollars for marketing and already kind of at that critical mass. So there's a really big barrier to entry there too. So yeah, both very...we love less than likely.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas
It's your preferred mode, it sounds like. So can you take us back to the beginning? How did it come to be? So I know that you just started dating. And Coolhaus was just a nascent idea. Is that right?
Freya Estreller
It was Tash's art project.
Natasha Case
Yes, I have my background is architecture and design. And I think I just wanted to make architecture more fun and accessible. And I think a general theme for me and for us, that we really have in common is like, accessibility is what makes something cool, like not the other way around. Like exclusivity is actually really uncool, the more people you can reach that the bigger the idea is. So I found food as a way to like make architecture just feel engaging and approachable. So I started doing all these projects connecting the two of them, and they were really ...Yeah, like Freya said like art projects, passion hobbies. And Freya, when I met her, I had been making the ice cream sandwiches from scratch for like two weeks, you know, naming them after architects and giving them out to colleagues at Disney Imagineering, which is where I was working at the time, in the summer of 2008 as things were just kind of sliding into the Great Recession to lighten the mood to create you know, just yeah, like uplift spirits and bring some humor to friends you know, like the sandwiches were called Mies Vanilla Rohe and Mintamilism. And Freya was, you know, like there's something in this.
Freya Estreller
There's something very nerdy. Yeah.
Natasha Case
So you didn't have the intention necessarily to create a business when you were just having some fun and making these ice cream sandwiches and providing some levity. Is that right?
Yeah, you know, it's interesting, I think for me, and there's definitely some like privilege in this... purely creative ideas and having the resources and the time to make cool things not for the sake, in the initial stage, of making money and just as kind of a tangent. So I was working and I like was making an income, but it's lucky to have that ability to just start out thinking outside of like, okay, how is this going to like, bring me an income and have really a pure cool idea. But then meet Freya and be like, Okay, now there's this cool idea, do we want to monetize this?
Freya Estreller
I was in, we like to call it, the quarter life crisis. Right? So I was like, 26, I was like, What do I want to do with my life? Also in meeting Natasha, I was like, Maybe I should date women that because I'm so unhappy in my personal dating life, dating men, that maybe I should date women as an experiment so that if I still don't like that, then it's me.
Natasha Case
You're the bad roommate
Freya Estreller
I'm the bad roommate. And so..(laughter). Yeah, so in that haze of like, dating and meeting her and her art project, I really wanted to work in food. I was in real estate development at the time building actually affordable housing, and I was like, met her and I was like, What a great way to sort of take this art project idea and bring it to life. And we were like,
Natasha Case
You were like really hittting a lot of birds with one stone.
Freya Estreller
Yes, I was. Yeah. And we were like, how are we going to launch this? Because we, you know, are losers with no money. We're like, let's buy a beat up ice cream truck. We found a beat up ice cream truck on Craigslist for $2,900 with no engine, no engine, so it didn't work. And it sat in front of my mom's house in Glendale for months, like the neighbors actually called the police, because it was an eyesore.
Natasha Case
So you're like, Okay, we have the truck, we have this big idea. We want to like go big or go home. We're like kind of working on how do we how do we get this out there? What's the big idea? We both had been into Coachella many years. And we're like, that's perfect. It's this critical mass. It's our target demo, which was really ourselves you know, and I have a lot to say about building a business around when you have that luxury of like knowing the target consumer that intimately because it's essentially you, but you we were like, you know, it's captive audience like this is it, let's try it. And we begged and begged Coachella to let us sell there and they finally caved because we were just so annoying and persistent. And I think also it was good to like have to think so big right away. Because we did have to think about things at scale. Probably sooner than we... like how do we really produce this ice cream?
Freya Estreller
We were literally making ice cream in commercial grade Cuisinart ice cream makers. We had maybe three of them going in my mom's kitchen. They make like a quart at a time.
Scott Robson
So you guys were making this all in your mom's kitchen Freya?
Freya Estreller
Yeah, yes.
Scott Robson
Leading up to going to Coachella how much ice cream did you have to make before you actually even like got in the truck and out to Coachella?
Freya Estreller
No, I know, right? I had a night terror because I was doing the math and I was like, it's physically impossible to make all the ice cream and cookies we need for Coachella. So it automatically got us to thinking how do we scale this?
Natasha Case
Yeah.
Freya Estreller
And we didn't know the concept of like a co-manufacturer or co-packer but we were like, I bet you there ice cream companies and bakeries out there that will make our recipes for us. And we just started Googling and calling people.
Scott Robson
I mean, it's amazing. You could get so much done by just Googling things.
Freya Estreller
Yeah, and like picking up the phone. Or you found it.
Natasha Case
Yeah. So we found like, the guy was making the Trader Joe's novelties, who made our first runs of gallon tubs for Coachella. He was really funny. He's like, Come and check out the facility. So we did and like he had this whole production going. I remember very specifically, it was like fruit pops? No, it was like, was coconuts carved out of the shell and then refilled with a sorbet. So it's a whole complicated thing. And we're looking around and Freya like, tripped over the main power for whole lot. And then for cookies, we call this woman Nancy. And she kind of heard our story. She's like, Yeah, why don't you come down, check out the facility, at like 8pm, like on a Tuesday. So we dive down to Anaheim to meet her. It's only a huge parking lot just us pullin up and her. And she has a really nice Lexus and had obviously dragged her husband there, too. He was like, you know, so irritated by the whole thing. She's like, why don't you check out, you know, where we make the cookies. We enter this huge factory. And she's like, I started off like you guys and now I make like, half of McDonald's cookies and cookies for Angel Stadium. Her husband was like, we make 1.6 million cookies a day. Like, whoa, like, seemed astonishing. And she was like, but someone took a chance on me when I was you guys. And I'm going to take a chance on you. I'll never forget Nancy, because not every... we made a lot of calls that did not go like that.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas
Yeah, I mean, I hear that a lot of the challenge to move to a co manufacturing, you know, model is that you need to have the numbers up and you need to be able to move the product reliably. So how did you go from like, a quart at a time to leaping to being able to work with a manufacturer and then know that you are going to be able to move it?
Natasha Case
Charm? (laughter)
Freya Estreller
I don't remember any time... because typically now co-mans will be like, Okay, well, here's our minimum quantity. And that's that and you need to pay me either like upfront, right away, or half upfront and half, like, you know, net 30 or something. But usually they wanted upfront, and they're like, you are brand new company and you don't have any traction. No one asked that from us randomly. Like I think they maybe were like...
Natasha Case
I think we had a vision. We just had an idea of what what it could be based on, like the Coachella and life beyond. Like we had done thanks to Freya pro-forma. But we've had nothing real to show for it. I think it was honestly a combination of bringing warm personality, energy kind of excitement that could be maybe appealing. And also I think in this case, I think both of those the ice cream and the cookies... well, one was someone who just had a good heart and was willing to pay it forward. But I think smart enough to know I don't know what's going on in the world. This is clearly the next generation of food. And so from a business perspective, needing to kind of hedge bets on... okay they seem cool, they seem like they know what's up that does bring a value.
Freya Estreller
I will say, those two co-mans, we were with them only for Coachella basically. And then we figured out better fit. Yeah, they were too big for us. Like there was no way they were actually going to be able to make bacon ice cream or fried chicken and waffle ice cream or like s'mores cookies. Like that just wasn't going to happen. So we eventually found the right fit. And I remember when Monty at Viladolche, cause they made our ice cream for us for probably 10 years and he had this whole presentation for you maybe like a couple years ago, where he was like yeah, like I remember the afternoon I met with Natasha and she had this crazy idea about her ice cream sandwiches out of a like beat up postal truck and I thought hmm, this might be crazy. This just might work. Yeah.
Natasha Case
He showed me that was the first slide because we were like kind of rethinking of the business relationship with them and that was like the first slide was him emailing his brothers they all own the the you know ice cream manufacturing together saying that. That was like so great. I will say the guy who made the ice cream for Coachella he's never forgiven me for not continuing business with him. But it's like why did you even want our business it was like nothing, we had no idea what we're doing but like he's still like won't take our call.
Freya Estreller
He really won't he like really won't do business with us.
Natasha Case
He has a like a poster of my face or something like that, don't do business with this woman.
Scott Robson
So take us through it. So how many trucks did you guys get up to before you started your first brick and mortar location?
Natasha Case
So the first few years were very much about the trucks so we had the first truck which was the beat up postal van which barely survived getting around to events and we quickly realized we need a second truck. Well actually realizing it is a bit of an understatement because actually, we got all these health department citations because the original postal van was only really meant for pre made sandwiches and we were scooping to order. And so eventually the health department hunted me down and they came to this event I had a huge line and they poured bleach on all my ice cream and hauled it away. It was the saddest thing ever. My last name is case so it was like the case of Natasha Case. And I knew I was gonna be okay when my like, you know, public defender, she was like, what do the ice cream sandwiches cost? Five bucks. She's like, do you guys do kids parties? But that forced us to build a more proper truck. And then we started building, we built another one in LA, we built one from New York, which was only made possible by an amazing financial partner called Opportunity Fund, who like there's still not really fundraising happening because this is still like 2010/2011 The whole banking loan thing is or line of credit, there's such a big miss for people starting small businesses. We just needed like $20-40,000 for trucks, you know, like banks are not interested in that. So we were able to get more trucks thanks to them. And I think the brick and mortar opening, we maybe had four or maybe we were also open in Texas.
Freya Estreller
Yeah, cuz we were also had a couple of trucks in Austin, Texas, I think probably like five or six trucks. And then that was like 2009. And then late 2011 is when we opened the first scoop shop. That's right in Culver City. And around that time too, we were launching at Whole Foods. So a lot of things happened in that year, in literally in a year and a half. It was like multiple trucks, brick and mortar launch in grocery and catering, because I remember like, after Coachella, Myspace emailed us and they were like so...
Natasha Case
Can you remember, remember your first friend Tom?
Scott Robson
I was gonna say is it Tom, did Tom actually reached out to you?
Natasha Case
It just shows you to you. I just think business plans, maybe think of them as like 60-70% If you're lucky, like so much is also the market talking to you about what you put out there and what it wants. But catering became over the years 90% of the business, sort of like prepaid events, weddings being the most frequent, especially now because it's like a revenge year for weddings, film sets in LA and New York. Big activations with corporate partners like SouthX when we were in Texas, but also here like Comic Con and just brands basically taking over CoolHaus for an experience. So it was like thinking of Coolhaus like this canvas for like other messaging, like we're doing a whole thing with like Star Trek Wrath of Khan. We made French's mustard ice cream. So like that became really the whole story with the trucks where like this machine for really special kind of unique experiences that are very memorable. And these partnerships that are cross promotional, and really take the brand to a new level, the shop being a place to test and understand ideas and create community and then grocery being like, by far the most scalable,like Freya said launching in Whole Foods 10 years ago. Yeah.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas
It doesn't seem like you thought, Oh, I'm going to be a CEO of an ice cream company when you started this right. And yet your responsiveness to the moment to the market to the opportunities that are coming to you. It seems like you were able to respond very quickly. I'm so curious about how you were able to kind of climb that learning curve so quickly in so many different areas. What do you think?
Freya Estreller
I think naivete had a lot to do with it.
Natasha Case
Yeah, we like to say that you like you can walk through a wall when you don't know it's there.
Freya Estreller
Because we just didn't know how hard it was. We just threw ourselves at it. And when we were younger, too, so we are have the energy to do it. We definitely roped a lot of our friends to it, like our highly over educated like Harvard design school friends, like scooping ice cream. Who were terrible at customer service.
Natasha Case
I think looking back, I think one it has something to do with our chemistry, there is a thing we have between the two of us of like anything's possible. Let's just try and like do it. And I think we cover terrain really well together. And like figuring things out, and I'm kind of the optimist, Freya's a more like a realist. Yeah. So that's a good push and pull. And I think to get back to the thing of like, the authentic connection with the audience. Instinct, I think is really, really important. Because I think ultimately some data kind of story and big vision and instinct combined is like really powerful. But I think especially when we didn't have access to those things, instinct can take you really far. Because if you had every piece of information on the marketplace, you still need to decide like well do we do what's there? Do we throw everything out? Because no one's thinking the way we want to think? You still need to have that vision, that gut, and that like conviction to do something big. And I think we did and I think we really knew who we were talking to. So it was like, okay, we can do this because that's the thing that I would want if I would go to the grocery store. That definitely I think took us really far.
Freya Estreller
Yeah, I think also just timing and luck. We were at that point of time at the zeitgeist of artisanal food. Well, not yet wellness, but I think more like organic, natural, right? And then social media. Because we had a food truck, we had to use Twitter, or else people would not know where we were. Like, I was like, inherent in the business models, we had to use social media.
Scott Robson
There was a whole time, by the way, I remember where food trucks were so huge. I mean, it was like, I was living in New York during this time. And I remember, everybody followed all of these food trucks on Twitter. Like, that's how you found out if there are gonna be like, two blocks over and that's what you did for lunch. I feel like you guys hit it at such the perfect time to create a brand out of these food trucks.
Freya Estreller
I think to pivot to the retail side CPG for long term growth.
Scott Robson
Yeah, tell me about that.
Freya Estreller
Yeah, until about 2011 or 2010, like mid 2010. We did like a small friends and family around like literally, like a friend gave us $5,000 Like, I remember asking one friend for $500 I don't even know why. Andy. And he regrets it to this day. But after that, we knew we had to raise money and the guy that was just pivotal in this pivot was Bobby Margolis. So Bobby Margolis was Natasha's dad's architecture client.
Natasha Case
That had designed his house and a couple other projects. And he was like a titan of like the fashion world and, and sort of done it all in terms of, you know, building brands, kind of, I think, if we were like the Coachella generation, he was like the Woodstock generation, you know, like these like, weird hippie denim brands and making them and selling them and but then like that failing, and then, you know, getting into licensing. And he was like one of the really early pioneers of fashion licensing the way the way that's not even really exciting to do anymore, because it's sort of all done. And he really came in as, like a business coach, mentor. And also, he and his son in law and daughter, as a family put in a million dollars to help grow the business, particularly scale grocery where he was like, that's how you're going to create a household brand. Like this ice cream shop can really come and go, but if you look at the brands up on that shelf like those are much more legacy. It's also funny, I realized this was in 2011. If you look back at like, the tax incentives that year, and that's exactly how much used to give as a gift. They were trying to do like stimulus things for the economy coming out of recession. I was like, oh, that's where our investment came from.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas
Fascinating. Yeah.
Natasha Case
That's how it should be, his family. Which they put into the economy. Yeah.
Freya Estreller
But yeah, I remember that when we were pitching him like, it was on our mind as well. We're like, look like Ben and Jerry's exited to Unilever for like $250 million. And they didn't make the ice cream. And so we were like, yeah, like, we want to build the ice cream brand of our generation. And we need to focus on CPG to do that.
Natasha Case
Exactly. And And it's funny, because Kate, you asked about like, Oh, like this all sounds like oh, a CEO has like... when we went to him, we were saying, Oh, we were the owners of this, it was like three meetings and they put in the money because they were really just investing in us. We didn't have like so much to show him, we kind of retooled division with them. And he's like, Freya, you're the CEO, Natasha, you're the COO. And I was like, I'm the CEO. You know, it's like, I think there's maybe some kind of like gender element in that, where I think as... I feel like for my generation of women, like the word entrepreneurship was something that I feel like I came to more by process of elimination, was not running in circles of that at all. And I think way less about like numbers and like business conversation, and it just wasn't in the wheelhouse and even from a pop culture perspective, I think was way less than the wheelhouse back then. Like I think kids are going to say, especially as young girls growing up and like wanting to be an entrepreneur or wanting to be a CEO, wanting to be a boss. So I didn't have the words to even know how to say what I wanted. And like lucky enough, like, I kind of found it through the journey. But anyway, Bobby was like, really, really instrumental in that. And he was like, That's right, we're gonna focus on grocery and we're gonna build it there. And we really started shifting our focus to that around that.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas
So that was your first moment of really fundraising for the company. It sounds like is that right?
Natasha Case
Yeah.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas
And then how long did it take you to get your goods to market essentially from that moment? And can you just walk us through what's happened since then?
Natasha Case
What was good about going to Bobby is we had like three Whole Foods where we were in, you know, it was like, again, the minimum viable product setup test.
Freya Estreller
It was very minimum, it was less than likely actually, because the product was in a box so you couldn't see what was in the box. Okay, just imagine this in the freezer aisle, an individual ice cream sandwich in a box with no branding on the front of it because we thought it would be cute for it to look like a truck. So you don't even know what this is you have to look on top of it and then it says Coolhaus and what it is.
Natasha Case
Like a black and white sticker and it was like this, we want it to be like metallic like silver like the trucks, but we couldn't afford metallic ink. So it was like this dull gray.
Freya Estreller
It was like Whole Foods best kept secret. I don't know how we survived on shelf, I mean, strictly on the popularity of the trucks and PR, truly. Because then they were like, look, okay, we want to expand you into more of the whole SoPAC region, right, which was like 22-23 stores. And they're like, one suggestion, maybe change the packaging?
Natasha Case
I had designed it myself. So what was good is, as Freya loves to say "Build, measure, learn" like that it was small enough, we could sort of take it back and re-put it out there and then immediately was like, it was like in these foil bags and brighter colors and easy to understand what it was and a picture of an ince cream sandwich on it. So like, that started doing a lot better right away. But I think the point is, if Whole Foods is said to us, oh, this is so cool. Like, let's say for the test, we're gonna put you in 200 stores.
Freya Estreller
What did they say like an overnight brand takes 10 years, like that was 10. I mean, we're in our 13th year so that it took a while for sure. And definitely a lot of lessons learned, a lot of money lost. It's such a tough business, like Tasha was alluding to in the beginning, like frozen, especially ice cream is tough. It's very competitive, you have to sell it at such a low price point, right, like $4 to $6. And you have to sell a lot of it.
Freya Estreller
We would've failed.
Natasha Case
It would have been over. But we had that. And so then Bobby is it was like, okay, great, we're gonna build that business. And we we've built to a critical mass of Whole Foods to get into the distributor, who also thought we were a joke at first. Her name is Cindy, and I've seen her on many trade show and CPG event. And she's like, another example of something I did not think would succeed, and here you are today, which is great. It's like the ultimate compliment, I think. And we first built the brand and Whole Foods, and really Coolhaus has very much remained. It's still over half the business like in the past five years, even now, I think it's even more this year. But it's been like between 50 and 70% of the Coolhaus business, which is too much, frankly, if you want to obviously be diversified. But that's a huge, huge part of where we incubated the brand and have become a real national household brand through them. And then we built the brand other like what's called like specialty and natural stores. So here in LA like Bristol Farms, Gelson's. But we also are in like Ralph's and Walmart's. And so getting into like conventional and now launching in Costco, also this fall. So now it's like 6000 doors and over 30 SKUs. And it's like 35 SKUs between the sandwiches, the mini sandwiches, the dairy free line, the cones, and soon to be our animal free dairy, which we can get into which is the company that bought Coolhaus is amazing sustainability, food and tech company that's helping us to bring a much more environmental focus to the product. Yeah, but that took years.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas
Before we get into the acquisition and all of that I have lots of questions about it. I want to go back for a minute and ask, did you have full time jobs? Or were are you working? At what point in time did you go all in with Coolhaus? Or was that from the very beginning?
Freya Estreller
Well, I think she was a casualty of the recession. So she had to go work at Coolhaus full time. That was like July or something like yeah, launched in April and then July, you're like, Well,
Natasha Case
I was working at a design trade show. And then that went bankrupt after like the recession was just continuing to roll through a lot of companies. So I was like okay, well I guess I'm doing Coolhaus full time. Freya was like how do we know it can afford to pay you, and I was like there's only one way to find out. You kept your full time job for two years.
Freya Estreller
I did. I did as like a backup and as a way to like support us while we were growing the business. And then as soon as we got the investment from Bobby, I then became full time.
Natasha Case
Yeah. And it's so funny. I look back at that time. We were basically living off for your salary for the whole first year of Coolhaus, which was not big at all.
Freya Estreller
Oh, I think I was making $60,000
Natasha Case
And yeah, much less than the you know, the household today. And it's funny like, it really is like Mo Money, Mo Problems. You know, we had such a fun life. We did everything we wanted that perfect. We were fine. Like we managed to make that work really well. Of course today, Two kids and all that is like different considerations. But that's part of what I think made it helpful to grow the business at that stage in life, in our 20s. The needs were just less and we could just get by and we were totally happy.
Freya Estreller
Nothing to lose. Yeah.
Scott Robson
Isn't it amazing, in your 20s, like you could really get by with so little and you're so happy right? That's totally what I remember too. So I'm curious for you guys, How did you manage your relationship inside and outside of the business? Because this I think is what was unique about you too is that you started dating and you started Coolhaus like the exact same time?
Natasha Case
Yeah, well, I don't know if we did manage it. I think we got lucky in a lot of ways. One is I think that we did put a lot of things on paper. I tell people now like, what would you say to someone starting a business with their romantic partner? I'm like, Look doesn't matter if they're your romantic partner, your family member, a really good friend... plan for the worst case scenario when you're not in the worst case scenario. If someone needs to leave, do they have to buy the person out?
Scott Robson
Like prenup the business almost. Yes,
Natasha Case
Yes exactly.
Freya Estreller
But there was no like vesting schedule. We were just like, yeah, we're 50/50 Great.
Natasha Case
It could have gone much, much worse. And I think I think in a way, it was good because we grew the business so fast, because we were always together, like lesbians are, talking about it, hashing it out, you know, and honestly, I think we like became so close. Also, the business was almost like this tool with which to understand each other and our philosophies about life without ever feeling that personal. Plus, it was a really fun business like giving people ice cream and bringing them joy. It's so romantic, driving this ice cream truck into the sunset on PCH, cater a beautiful Malibu party. Like it was really fun. But I think now looking back, I don't think I have some of the tools in setting up boundaries. Like you know, okay, we're going out on date. We're not going to talk about work.
Freya Estreller
Yeah. And I think after four years of that, is when I then had to leave. No, no, but I remember we had this huge fight at Angelina Osteria where I basically told Natasha, I was like, I don't believe in you as CEO anymore, which is like a very harsh thing to say. In you life partner. Yeah. So and at this point, we're engaged. And I remember, like one of us stormed off, and I got back to the house. And I was like, writing Dan, our business partner, who was Bobby's son in law. And I was like, Dan, I no longer want to work for Natasha. And she was like, see you work for me. And I was like, slash with Natasha, send. And I was like, that's it.
Natasha Case
And I knew that was the end, for you.
Freya Estreller
Yeah.
Scott Robson
But can I ask like, what happened? Like, what line was crossed? Was it just like, you didn't want to mix the business and the personnel any longer, like, what was that?
Freya Estreller
I was just so burnt out, I felt so much resentment towards you, because you got to do all the fun stuff, which was like sales and marketing and branding and like flavor development. And I was doing ops, finance, dealing with employees, writing SOPs, HR, Payroll, this was 2013. And we are like, finishing up our cookbook; we got a cookbook deal. So I was like, trying to test out recipes. You're like doing events in Austin, New York, the store is going. There's catering and I just couldn't handle it all. And it was very much so affecting our relationship.
Freya Estreller
Yeah, that's my pattern. I'm like a zero to 10 million per se.
Natasha Case
In the beginning, we would argue, and we would always get to like a higher ground. And then this was just like these arguments that would last for days and feel kind of unproductive. I needed someone who I can go to and be like, because at the time, that was the structure... I was the leader of the company, you know, from a technical standpoint, and I'd go to her, I be like, how is NetSuite going? Like how is the input for inventory system? And she'd be like I don't wanna talk about that right now. It's like you need someone you can go to do like, let me give you a status. It was also I feel like I was feeling limited in terms of not being able to help and access in other ways beyond the more fun stuff, which is so really her court . And I think too, Freya, this may not be true, but I kind of see like, it's really hard to find people who are do really well in the zero to five year, the five to 10, the 10 to 15 and beyond. Usually someone is really good at one and like you are kind of the zero to five. And you do get to that point where it's just like less exciting.
Natasha Case
Yeah. So, I mean, the biggest factor I think was everything you described but there was also that element where I think you were just less passionate about where it was going.
Freya Estreller
Yeah. Totally
Kate Jaeger-Thomas
I love that you break it down that you know, some people are better at one phase than another that is so great to hear and be reminded of I also really get the sense that when Freya you said I'm out I'm done with this, it was like almost a relief. Like both of you agreed almost immediately that this was where you needed to go. It sounds like it felt like the really right move.
Freya Estreller
Absolutely. It was the best thing for the business and for our relationship.
Natasha Case
Yeah, I think there's like this this I think it's it's kind of a universal kind of human thing. Like this feeling of like, learning something new. Like it's scarier like, I don't know, but then when you're like, you're like, I know I can learn and get to the other side of it. And then how empowering that feels after I can feel that I was going through that I was like, oh my god Freya's leaving. I'm gonna have to deal with all this stuff that I just haven't had to. And it was scary and immediately I can see like, oh, I need this. I need to understand this stuff. I need to dig in here and like it kind of like pushed me in a way but get that kind of uncomfortable fear like it's so important to just sit with and confront.
Freya Estreller
Yeah, I think it made you better...
Natasha Case
Yeah, for sure.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas
I'm so curious. I mean, we've been talking a lot about your relationship in this side of the business but also like you are parents now, you got married, you started dating with the business. How did that go?
Natasha Case
The parenting thing is really interesting one because I feel like by the time we had our son, Remy in 2017, it's like we had we had experienced so many of the stressors together.... I don't want to say it was like all like a walk in the park. But like, I already knew Freya so well, at the what she's like, at the 11th hour, at the point of exhaustion, at the point of near breakdown, I think it's, it would be much harder, like you do see couples who like they have not experienced that level of like fatigue and stress together. And you were learning that side of the other person while you also are keeping a baby alive. So like that actually, I think ended up being a really big advantage. And I do think in some ways, we were like, very on the same page. I feel like in sync, you know?
Freya Estreller
Yeah, I feel like, because now we have you know, now we have two. Like Remy is five, Nico's two, and I don't find it... I don't know.... I think a lot of parents are going to hate me saying this. I don't find it that hard. Like, clap. I think it's just because I think because we owned businesses together and operated business together.
Natasha Case
Yeah, it's helped a lot.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas
This makes so much sense to me. I mean, it sounds like you've navigated so much together in very high stakes situations that, you know, parenting can be really tough and be a high stakes situation, in some instances, particularly like at 3am. But you have already been there. It wasn't, you weren't charting new course, there.
Natasha Case
Exactly. And I think that there's plenty things about it that are very business like. Especially for our daughter, we did IVF so it's like my egg, and Freya carried her, it's like, oh, we're working together.
Freya Estreller
She's the CEO and I'm the COO.
Natasha Case
It's funny, like, I think things like that, you know, we're working together like we always do. Similarly, I think we know how to, like, rely on our community. And we're lucky. Some of that is purely geographic. We're both natives to LA, we have siblings here, we have a pretty big like social network and you cannot do this alone. You need the help. And I think when you run a business, like you need to also know when to ask for it.
Freya Estreller
Yeah, we're very good at delegating, and empowering.
Natasha Case
Yeah, the expectation of one and two parents and whatever is just insane at this point in humanity, right. It's very far from where we started, let's just say.
Scott Robson
It really is. And so you have so much on your plate. You've got two kids at this point, you've got Coolhaus and then you guys decide to start another business because you're bored I guess. I don't understand. So you decide to start a Future Gin. Can you tell me a little bit about where that idea came from? Why this sounds like a great idea right now.
Freya Estreller
I think it sort of came up or I even just entertained it because I had a previous alcohol business Ludlows Cocktail Company which was selling these prepackaged all natural jello shots at like Whole Foods, Total Wine and more. Like totally fun company. And then I got pregnant and then I realized like, whoa, the product life fit, it's not there now like now I'm a mom. I can't go like shilling jello shots to the world.
Freya Estreller
I could actually. Great for baby showers. Yeah, so I put that on pause while I was pregnant. And then a friend of ours, a really good friend of ours who's actually one of the first lesbian business owners that we met, like when we started Coolhaus, Amy Atwoods, so we totally looked up to her and still do. She wanted to start a gin with the two of us and our other friend Mary, who's also queer. Like all four of us are queer ladies. She had actually worked in bars and have that kind of like developed beverage programs and cocktail programs. And Amy comes from the natural wine world. And so she was like, I want to make a gin that's very like Los Angeles and California focused. So a lot of like citrus, honeysuckle, and avocado leaf, grape leaf as a nod to her work in the natural wine world.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas
I mean, you could!
Natasha Case
And it's in a wine bottle, Future Gin.
Freya Estreller
Yes. And I think also the name future being something that is very optimistic. We spent a lot of time working on like the brand and the name and what are our brand values and pillars. And we wanted to do something that we could give back and be inspiring, especially because most bartenders are you know, there are more and more female bartenders now but there are not a lot of female bar owners like in the in that world, just a lot of like, female brand ambassadors, bartenders, but like we never owned the actual business and the product. So I think that was really fun, enabling Mary to do that and be an inspiration for all her friends in the hospitality world.
Natasha Case
And gin is a really interesting one from a product standpoint because it sort of had was having like the growth trajectory of bourbon and still is like when that first stage of small batch craft cocktail world. But gin is a several weeks distillation (if even) similar to the path of vodka yet contains, I feel like the complexity, if you look at that botanical like Freya described, like, what else can you throw in there, you know, like an ice cream sandwich like anything can go in that. As long as it's, you know, certain amount of Juniper but... But I love the idea of we can really respond to this demand in this growing market, like immediately and make product and get it out there. It's really like a unique spirit in that way. Yeah, we spent and probably went through 14 iterations, formulation iterations because we really wanted to get that right mouthfeel and texture and the brightness, it's a whole thing like the gin is not chill filtered, because typically spirits when they're super clear, they filter out all the oils, and fats, but we didn't want to do that with the citrus peels that are in there. So anyway, you guys have to try it. I don't know if you have.
Scott Robson
It's delicious, I've had it. It's delicious. It really truly is.
Freya Estreller
Yeah, but Ithink that's the new sort of direction from Ludlows Cocktail Company jello shots to this more mature company, gin?
Scott Robson
Yeah. And I'm so curious, like, you know, because ice cream space is obviously very different from the spirits space. But I'm sure that there are a lot of lessons that you brought with you when you stepped into the partnership for Future Gin. And I'm just curious what some of those lessons might have been.
Natasha Case
We've been talking about this a lot recently. And I mean, outside of just like the basic dynamics of building a brand, you know, the marketplace, what is the one to 1-5-10 year goal, like is there if there is an exit strategy, relationships, and kind of, I think having the chops and kind of the credibility from Coolhaus, I think has gone a really long way. Having a real story and a real brand platform beyond just like the product... like the product is great, but like, what do we stand for? And like, it's a really special story. And I think that's what people really connect with. And that's where with Coolhaus, that's where you get the loyalty. You know, we've been talking a lot about what's the marketing and like, especially, we got this whole debate about like social media, you know, and I have my philosophical issues with social media. Plus, it was never really, as far as like a paid marketing platform never really made a lot of sense for Coolhause, because we were never going to be an E-Comm brand shipping ice cream. What I've been talking about with Freya, like it's a really small team, you know, Freya is the one who's spending the most hours of the day right now working on it. And like, how important is to just get out there and do the sales and like, do the things that are actually going to move the dials, it's very easy to get sucked into a bunch of these different things like, you know, you could make content on Instagram all day, but like, how is that actually going to move the dial on the business? Are people even noticing? Are they going to go and buy it? Like I think but I think you have to choose when you're a small company choose something and really, really like lean in on the channels.
Freya Estreller
And I think also with iOS 14, DTCs. And especially it being alcohol, there's so many laws and rules, it's tough to be a DTC alcohol brand. And now with post COVID, hopefully, events, there are so many events. And I think what we did really well at Coolhaus was build community. And that's what I'm focusing on with Future Gin. Like we have an event at the end of the month, because it's pride. We're putting together these toiletry kits for the downtown Women's Center, at an account of ours in Pasadena Youth Street Pizza, that's also women, queer and bipoc. Owned. And it's like events like that, that I'm like, let's do something good during Pride. And I want people to know, like, that's what Future Gin stands for, like, cool, we can have like a cool cocktail, but like if we're not being active in our communities, then like, what's the point?
Kate Jaeger-Thomas
I'm so glad you brought that up. Because what I've been thinking about just since you first started speaking is that you really are such a forward focused company, right? And you're really about driving with your products, with your mission, with the culture that you've created... driving society forward as well to a new place. That is so clear from your choices about what you're making, as well as some of these different practices and decisions that you're making around how you get out into the community. I'm curious, how do you bring that into your day to day conversations?
Natasha Case
I think that's a great question. I think what was happening especially early on with Coolhaus, is we were kind of doing it anyway. But we didn't really know how to talk about it or even that we should be. And I think there's a lot of things when we have like our magic as folks in business, you know, and in leadership like that you just do but then someone could ask you like, Well, how do you how do you explain that? How do you break that down? And it actually, it's so baked into you that it's a really important exercise to like, lay it on the page. For example, I always have tried to lead also from a place of like creativity. And like the power of creative thinking, and I just gave this talk yesterday for WIE, and really having to put on the page. Like, why is it that ideas have been such an important theme at Coolhaus. And that people have felt comfortable when they're not in one department to go to another and say, I have this cool idea. And, and it's just been a very, like creative experience. And it was like really interesting to actually think about, like, Oh, these are the different things that we've done, even if sometimes that means going out of the office and just having personal time, and then that creates trust. And then you feel like you can share ideas, or it's about being vulnerable as a leader or whatever. So I think just over time, we've probably learned to like get it outside of our own heads of actually lead with that in the communication.
Freya Estreller
Yeah. But also, one thing is I studied sociology at Cornell, the one thing I took from that is like, how do you create the culture you want at your company, right and with your brand? And that was so important for us at Coolhaus, sitting down creating your company values, like together with your team and like collaborating with them on it? How do you create an environment where there is authenticity and like a feedback loop where like, people aren't afraid to tell you what's wrong, because I can't have my eyes and ears everywhere. We need to rely on our team to catch what's wrong, and then fix it. There was like a practical business practice with that as well, you know, so I think we were good at that. It's collaborative and also like, we wanted to create something that felt like a family. Yeah, like, our friend's mom had a wedding recently. And Russell came to work it and you mentioned to me, you're like, Russell has only been at Coolhaus six months less. Yeah. And I was like, wow, like, we still have people working at Coolhaus that have been there for 12 plus years. And that speaks to I think like what we wanted to create in terms of community.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas
So as you were about to go into selling the company, how were you able to approach your acquisition, and that whole process and knowing that this is such a core part of what your company is about?
Natasha Case
What appealed to me about The Urgent Company, and Perfect Day was, they were the number one pillar there is about how can we reinvent the future of food around sustainability and healing the planet? They have this amazing technology with this ingredient, Perfect Day, which is a milk protein like dairy without using cows. It's a fermentation process similar to brewing beer, because cow-free dairy doesn't have lactose and it doesn't come from an animal that's a byproduct of animal. It doesn't have cholesterol. So making this incredible product that can be really accessible to people, but be so much kinder on the planet. In fact, the milk protein is 99% less carbon footprint than, you know, dairy from the cow. It's funny, we're just looking at, we have chocolate milk in the fridge, and they have written on it, like, "save water, drink more milk." And it's like, the amount of water it takes to make that jar of milki was like how could you even say that, you know? The sustainability is something that I feel like we never really got to focusing on a Coolhaus. We were very much about the social mission, the creative environment, you know, giving back in that way, but I felt it was tough to really make that a central focus, a lot of that was financial. Feeling like it was kind of off limits some of the ingredients and the packaging. So this was a way to really make that front and center and feel proud of how Coolhaus can live on.
Scott Robson
And now you guys are really at the cutting edge of the ice cream industry with Perfect Day because I think cattle account for 4% of the greenhouse gasses that are emitted every single year. So it's it's a massive part of it. How do you see that going? As far as the transition of your products into this new formulation? I would assume that this is another big challenge for you guys, really wanting to get that perfect.
Natasha Case
Yeah, I think I mean, I don't know...we have an amazing R&D and science team. And they've done an incredible job. We're actually just thawing out a sample of cow free dairy Coolhaus salty caramel right now to try. And it's fantastic. Like, the goal is that you don't know the difference. And you're not really even making a choice. It's almost like there's an argument around, to the consumer not even talking about this technology, because it's so hard to really like, explain something big like that. And this is so different of the approaches, it's so different than traditional plant based. Plant based at this point is pretty easy for the consumer to understand. A ton of brands have...
Freya Estreller
Which also takes up a lot of natural resources.
Natasha Case
It's not like healing the planet to really do that. Like I would say, yeah, so it's almost like do you just say, just swap it out? You barely even notice. I mean, it's on the packaging, if you look. And it's really more of like a media and PR story where you could really have multiple paragraphs to talk about it. Because like, you cannot tell. It's so creamy. It tastes like the real thing. And it just kinder on your body and the planet. It's a total win/win, triple win.
Scott Robson
As somebody who is lactose intolerant, but yet still eats a lot of ice cream. I really can't wait until I can sample all of it.
Scott Robson
So getting back to the acquisition process, that is something that I'm really curious about. Knowing that that is like a whole nother world of getting up to speed, the learning curve involved in that. What is something that surprised you about the acquisition process that you didn't realize?
Natasha Case
A lot of things. And acquisition process processes are, I think if you talk to anyone, they're rarely like this perfect, pretty picture. There's so much to kind of dig up on the business, we went through a very much an expedited version, because we weren't a multiple 100 million dollar revenue company by the time we sold. We were still just under 20 million gross range. And so it was even in our version, getting the lesson into like the nitty gritty, you hear stories of it taking, you know, two or three years like this, we did it in under six months. But I think it can bring out a really tough side, it's a lot to take on. A lot of people, I think have their business and their brand very tied to their identity. I always tried to have somewhat of a healthy separation from it. But it's a really big change to go through kind of controlling everything as CEO and leader and co founder to no longer, you know, of course, being in that role. And then I think, you know, we've done a lot of different types of fundraising over the years, this was a full cash buyout. So you had to get every single signature. Some people are just like living in Singapore, and you barely have their contact information, you know, and you're working on these very tight deadlines. So was extremely challenging and stressful. It was tough. But like, I think it was really good timing too. 2021 first of all, more women owned businesses than any year sold. And now we really are heading into the recession and valuations have gone down and there's less appetite to buy. So I think I think we made the right call. Like I think it's was the right next chapter for Coolhaus. But yeah, it was intense.
Freya Estreller
I remember when it happened, you literally ugly cried by yourself in the kitchen. Because it literally there was a moment of the whole transaction that hinged on one signature. And if it didn't happen at that time, the deal might have been punted, and it might not have happened.
Natasha Case
It happened within four minutes of when the deadline was
Freya Estreller
Yes.
Scott Robson
Stop.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas
(gasp) Oh, my gosh!
Freya Estreller
And there was a holiday party at Coolhaus with Perfect Day that if it didn't happen, they would have to probably tell everyone like no holiday party. Yeah, like it was that night, the party. So it all was happening. And it was literally four minutes. And I couldn't even be there for her, because I had my company's holiday party. And so I was, you know, we called her at two and we were like, did it happen? And she said yes, it happened and I just sat here and ugly cried by myself.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas
Of course you did.
Scott Robson
Unbelievable.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas
Yeah. That is such a story. I mean, I know that you talked about it being hard to give up some of the control. But what does it free up for you? What are you excited about moving forward?
Natasha Case
Yeah, I mean, I definitely already learned a lot. You know I'm at the new company helping with the transition, helping to bring the other brands they have to life more. Kind of bring that Coolhaus magic, they have a great another icecream company called Brave Robot, a cream cheese company called Modern Kitchen, a protein powder. You know, kind of bringing those brand stories forward. So it's good. And again, speaking to the like, all the things you kind of have in your head, because I think as a founder like that is like a common thing. You have a lot in your head and then someone asks you, okay, well, how do you do this, this and this, and it, it takes a lot of work to like get it out of yourself, like what is my process? You know, because you've been operating a lot more from a place of probably instinct and gut. And I think some empathy for seeing things from like, I'm the Chief Brand Officer at The Urgent Company. So you see, kind of from the perspective of the team, the employees more, that's definitely been really enlightening. I mean, even having to go and set up like all my benefits, which I totally like botched and messed up 100 times because I haven't had to do that in like 13 years and having to like embarrassing.
Natasha Case
I went to the doctor the other day, and like you're not on the insurance. I was like "Natasha?"
Scott Robson
They don't make it easy.
Freya Estreller
It's funny though. Like, just being an observer to like the last six months. I was like, Oh my God, Natasha has to work so much more now than she ever has. Yeah, yeah. But it was like because you're the boss. And you're like, you have your team. And now you're like, Oh, you're an employee.
Natasha Case
Of a two year startup. The Urgent Company's only been around a couple years.
Freya Estreller
She's like really working. Like, oh, Natasha is working hard again.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas
It's very different kind of work, I'm sure.
Natasha Case
Yeah, it is. And I was trying to bring in some of my leadership hat to at all so there's a lot to unpack there which I think I'll continue to have to have perspective on. Ask me in another six months.
Scott Robson
Where can everybody find both Coolhaus and Future Gin?
Natasha Case
Coolhaus, I would say Whole Foods is again our biggest retailer. But any store that has like premium ice cream will typically have Coolhaus. So, like I said here in LA Bristol Farms, Gelson yummy.com, Amazon, Fresh, Ralph's has all the cones. Walmart has all the cones. If you go around around the country like premium sets especially novelties you'll find us there. And a lot of like that last minute delivery.
Freya Estreller
Future Gin well now on our website you can get it delivered to almost every state so that's great. In LA and New York, any like natural wine or craft spirits store. So somewhere like a domain LA, Silverlake wine, an Astor Wine and Spirits. It's gin and tonic season.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas
It 100% is. As I'm sitting here going, where can I get it Like in the next two days? So I'm working on it. I already have the ice cream cones and whatnot already in my freezer. They're delicious. So I just need some gin to go along too.
Scott Robson
Well, guys, thank you so so so much for coming on. We have enjoyed every second.
Natasha Case
We thrive on less than likely, so...
Scott Robson
Okay, Kate, that was Natasha Case and Freya Estellar. That was such a great episode. I love that episode.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas
It really was. They're so funny too. I just kept on cracking up. There were moments. When I was editing this episode. I'm editing it and and I'm just like, there's so much that I need to edit out because we're laughing so much during this episode.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas
I loved talking with them. They are so fun, relatable, real like, what amazing stories. I can't believe how wonderfully and openly they shared everything. It was just wonderful to hear them talk about their story.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas
No and I was muted, like a good portion of the time there was so I was laughing when you didn't hear me laughing.
Scott Robson
Same. It was it was a joy to record this episode, it was really good. What were some of your favorite parts of this episode for you?
Kate Jaeger-Thomas
Well, you know, I mean, their story is so special and great and fun. And I think a big takeaway for me is just that they had so much improvisation in their work, you know, we tend to feel like we need to know what's coming down the pike, you know, as we move ahead at our business. And, you know, I think that they talked a lot about understanding their market, but they also really identified with their market. So they were able to listen to what they might want. And they were able to really read the market very well and take hold of those opportunities that came their way. But it was a lot of permission to really lean into the fun improvisation of building a business.
Scott Robson
Completely, completely. I totally agree with that, you know, one of the things that I really liked is, there's a lot of companies that feel like they can't really launch until they've got everything figured out beforehand. But that clearly wasn't something that they were thinking of when Natasha was creating these really playful sort of fun sandwiches that were based on her architecture interest and background. And you could see it sort of grow from like a tiny little truck at Coachella, to more trucks to more trucks to getting rid of that old truck to now your first brick and mortar to getting an investor and then getting this distribution nationwide because they sort of realized, Oh, this is the place that we need to take it to. And I really liked that. Because I think that for folks that are thinking, oh, I need to really have this completely figured out before I launch a business. It shows you that you can be improvisational, like you were saying and just sort of see whatever the next natural step is. And you can get quite far with that.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas
Absolutely. And can we just please talk about the fact that they were starting their business while starting their relationships? So there were so many variables that could've potentially become problematic, but they just leaned in and had a good time.
Scott Robson
Yeah, I don't know if my relationship would have survived that, but I'm really happy for them. And I'm also happy for them that they chose their relationship over the business.
Natasha Case
Oh, right. When when Freya was like, I gotta go, I'm no longer doing this.
Scott Robson
It's not working out for me anymore. I mean, I know there's a lot of entrepreneurs out there who start their own businesses with their boyfriends, girlfriends, partners, whomever... I've heard of so many. And what ends up happening is they break up and the business ends up eventually probably breaking up as well, unless they can really be amicable about it. And that's a really tough thing to have happen. So that was such a real moment, that story of being like, this isn't working out I need to peace out of this situation. And I think that that was really generous of them to tell us that story. Because, you know, it wasn't like the pretty happy ending with you know, dolphins jumping through the water and unicorns, you know, going across the sky. I mean, it wasn't tied with a bow. This is that was really, really great for them to share that.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas
Absolutely. I agree that my relationship probably would not be able to withstand building a business. And they had so much generosity towards each other in a lot of ways too. And, you know, I really see that they probably had to like compartmentalize here and there, right, and they had to have been great at it. But I also loved as a parent, myself, I also loved who has a business, that that they were able to say, oh, you know what, like, being a parent, while hard, I had already seen so much of my own partner. They were able to kind of say, like, this was no big deal going through this very difficult knew, you know, having babies and things like that, which can be really trying on a lot of relationships. And they'd already been through so much in their business. So they were really so open about so many different aspects of their business of their marriage, of their parenting, I will be reflecting on this a lot in my own life for I think many months, if not longer to come.
Scott Robson
I know me too. It's funny. I used to work in the marketing space, as a lot of people know, and they're like, how did you and your husband work together? And I'm like, No, that would have been awful. That would have been terrible. It was really refreshing to get like the real downlow on somebody who's gone through it and done it and come out the other side.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas
You know, it's so interesting. When Ben and I met, we actually had been cast, you know, we were both actors. I was an actor at that point. We had been cast in the same play, and I actually turned the role down. And then we met like six or seven weeks later, while he was rehearsing for that, and I was rehearsing for something else. And we always say, if we had worked together in that play in that moment, this relationship would never have happened. Isn't that funny?
Scott Robson
That is so funny.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas
And 100% True. Like, it would never have happened.
Scott Robson
Man. I love stories like that. I think the other thing that I really enjoyed from this episode was about how they targeted themselves as being their own customers. And a lot of the times you talk about this in the marketing space is we always say it's actually really nice if you know exactly who your customer is. And generally, we're like, we are our own customers from five minutes ago. So I feel like you're doing really good job of encapsulating that and they know exactly how to target them. They know what they like, they know what they don't like, they know how to be clever in a way that's going to resonate with them. I think it just fills in a lot of gaps. And so for a lot of business people, I hope it's like going into that space of trusting that you know who your customer is, because hopefully they they're you to some degree.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas
Yeah, and it doesn't have to be complicated, right? Like you and I were reflecting on this, that Coachella was such a perfect platform and space for them to be. And they didn't have to overthink it in any way. Like that was where they were going to be launching this product. And that's a space where they could collect so much data and get all of the proof of concept if you will. So it doesn't need to be complicated, they were able to just really roll with it and, and lean into the fact that they really knew their customer base super well, because it was them.
Scott Robson
That's like the way to do it. Like keep it simple people
Kate Jaeger-Thomas
Totally, I was really inspired. They said a few times, you know, well, this is fun. Like, this is a fun product, ice cream is great, there's so much joy in it. And I loved that, as well as the fact that they're mission focused 100% through and through and just as indicated by their acquisition deal, you know, working with a company like Urgent Company and really saying, we're going to lean into this idea that we're going to replace our product with a non dairy product. I mean, that is massive. So this really fun business having huge, meaningful societal impact. I just think it's really inspiring. And it reminds me that everything that we do, you know, even the fun stuff really matters. I love it.
Scott Robson
I absolutely agree. And it's funny. It's this balance between Hey guys, sometimes it's not that deep, like let's just have a great time. But at the same time Natasha was interesting , just being like the climate change space was not something that we were really standing for, but that we wanted to stand for and so this was our opportunity to do something that was important to us.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas
I'm so excited to try it too because I know having had Coolhaus recently, I brought it all home for my kids and Ben to taste and everyone's like this is really good, right? The quality is so undeniable. So for Natasha to say and you can't even tell the difference with a non-dairy based product. I'm like, Oh my gosh, how can that be possible? I can't wait to try it. This is so good. So if you haven't tried it, you have to go out there and get some right now it's yummy, yummy, yummy.
Scott Robson
It's absolutely worth picking up either a pint or you know a couple of ice cream sandwiches. They're all delicious.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas
I wish you and I lived closer to each other, like anywhere closer than we do right now, which is across the country. I'd really love to have a gin and tonic with you with Future Gin too, as well.
Scott Robson
We're gonna put a pin in that and make that a goal, please?
Kate Jaeger-Thomas
Yes please.
Scott Robson
Okay, maybe maybe later in this summer.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas
Let's do it. We'll report back.