Founder Fundraising Journey: Frozen One, Alan Chen & Conner Mennig

In this episode of the Startup CPG Podcast, host Hannah Dittman sits down with Alan Chen and Conner Mennig, co-founders of Frozen One - a protein ice cream brand built to prove that "better for you" doesn't have to mean sacrificing taste. Frozen One delivers 40 grams of protein and under 400 calories per pint, a fraction of what a traditional pint of ice cream contains, and has grown into one of the fastest-rising frozen brands in the country.

Alan and Conner met at UW Madison in 2020 and reconnected in Austin while both stuck in unfulfilling sales jobs. A single gym conversation in January 2025 about the lack of good high-protein options turned into a Ninja Creami machine that same night - and a trademark filed two days later. Together they run a scrappy, relationship-driven operation: Conner focused on operations and finance, Alan on product and marketing, both present at every investor and buyer meeting.

Hannah and the co-founders dig into the three fundraising milestones that took Frozen One from a Ninja Creami in an apartment to over 2,300 doors nationwide, including Target, Wegmans, and Central Market.

Listen in as they discuss:

• How a single gym complaint in January 2025 turned into a trademark filing two days later
• Landing a $250K first check on a SAFE from a local Austin investor Conner met at a house party
• The scramble to close an oversubscribed $2M round after Target asked for 1,500 doors in three months
• Splitting founder responsibilities: Alan on product and ice cream R&D, Conner on operations and finance
• Landing Central Market by cold-calling the buyer - and how that velocity data fueled investor conversations
• Building the team: a creative director roommate, a "head of ice cream," an ad-ops hire, and a new COO from Van Leeuwen
• Why the current $5.5M round with Brand Foundry is primarily focused on closing the team and bandwidth gap
• Turning investor "no's" into direct, honest feedback conversations instead of walking away quietly
• What surprised them most about CPG: just how genuinely difficult and slow retail execution is, even after landing the deal
  
  

Episode Links:

• Alan Chen – Co-Founder, Frozen One Email: [e-mail] (domain inferred from Conner's confirmed email - please verify)
• Conner Mennig – Co-Founder, Frozen One Email: [e-mail]
• Frozen One Instagram: @frozenoneprotein
• Website: frozen-one.com
  
  

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• Episode music by Super Fantastics
  
  

Creators and Guests

Host

Hannah Dittman

Operations and Finance Correspondent at Startup CPG

What is The Startup CPG Podcast?

The top CPG podcast in the world, highlighting stories from founders, buyer spotlights, highly practical industry insights - all to give you a better chance at success.

Conner Mennig
Having such a differentiated product in a frozen category really set us apart. I think early on were pitching ourselves and the differentiation of a product that has so much potential rather than last year's sales or rather than the frozen category itself. And I think that really gave us the head start of why the Angel Group and other investors really believe in US. Because 40 grams of protein in ice cream that is low calorie and healthy and good ingredients for you like this is bound to go viral. This is a product that's bound to blow up among every retailer in America. And I think that's really what the hump that we really had to get over. Yes, is a difficult category, but it is a very unique, very exciting product within the category among protein being on such a hot wave throughout America right now.

00:49
Conner Mennig
So I think we had a lot of the right factors that gave us the momentum to get where we are right now and I think back all the time. Those are the same factors why we started the company. Alan and I were just two consumers who wanted a better option of eating protein and finding something that's actually tasted good at actually craveable. You look forward to eating it. And that kind of all just built its own momentum. The snowball effect to where we are.

01:11
Hannah Dittman
Hey everybody.

01:12
Hannah Dittman
I'm Hannah Dittman, finance and operations host.

01:15
Hannah Dittman
Of the startup CPG podcast.

01:17
Hannah Dittman
And today I'm joined by Alan Chen and Conner Mennig, co founders of Frozen One for a founder fundraising journey episode. Frozen One is redefining what better for you ice cream can be. With a product that delivers 40 grams of protein per pint, only 400 calories, and most importantly, a true ice cream experience. Frustrated by the lack of indulgent high protein options that actually tasted good, Alan and Conner set out to create a product that bridges the gap between performance and enjoyment. What started with homemade recipes, a Ninja creami, and a vision to reinvent the category, the has quickly grown into one of the fastest rising brands in frozen food, landing on shelves nationwide at retailers including Target, Wegmans, Central Market, and much more. In this founder fundraising Journey episode, we dive into the story behind Frozen One.

02:06
Hannah Dittman
How Alan and Conner went from sales careers to building a breakout consumer brand, and what it took to launch and.

02:12
Hannah Dittman
Scale in a challenging category. With big opportunity in grocery, we also.

02:17
Hannah Dittman
Unpack their fundraising journey from early capital to raising institutional funding and the lessons they learned along the way. Alan and Conner share candid insights on moving quickly, validating demand, balancing growth with execution, and what went right and what was a challenge. Throughout their journey, we Discussed the realities of scaling a physical product business, navigating rapid retail expansion, and what founders should know before embarking on their own fundraising journey. If you're a founder raising capital, scaling a consumer brand, or simply interested in how emerging brands go from idea to national retail shelves, this episode is packed with practical advice and valuable lessons. Do yourself a big favor, grab a pint of Frozen One and a spoon and enjoy the perfect ice cream alongside this exciting episode.

03:03
Hannah Dittman
Enjoy. Hey everybody.

03:09
Hannah Dittman
Welcome back to the startup CPG podcast.

03:12
Hannah Dittman
This is Hannah and today we're back.

03:14
Hannah Dittman
For an awesome founder fundraising journey episode with Alan Chen and Conner Mennig of Frozen One. Alan and Conner, welcome to the show.

03:22
Alan Chen
And a great having us. Thank you so much.

03:24
Conner Mennig
Excited to be on.

03:25
Hannah Dittman
We are super excited to have you guys here today. I'm a huge fan of your brand. For anyone out there that hasn't tried Frozen One yet, this is your call to action to do so. I'm sure you'll be inspired after the episode and hearing about all the great, awesome things that Alan and Conner have been up to in their fundraising journey. Before we dive in to the details on the company, I'd love to just get a brief background from each of your career, the journey, and the path that ultimately led you to Frozen One today.

03:53
Conner Mennig
Yeah, Conner here. We actually both grew up in Wisconsin. We met at UW Madison. I was in business school, marketing supply chain. Came down to Austin, Texas and was in corporate sales roles for a couple of years was unfulfilled by that. And that's how we are here. Yeah.

04:08
Alan Chen
And this is Alan. So, yeah, me and Conner, we met at UW Madison in 2020 and just kind of became best friends right away. I was pre med at the time, so I was going down the whole medical track and it was not meant to be. And I look back on it, I'm really thankful for that. But actually a lot of the chemistry class I learned ice cream is fundamentally like chemistry. And so it all ended up not being for nothing. But yeah, me and Conner, we both ended up in Austin at different times in like pretty unfulfilling sales jobs that we just were not happy in at all. And I was not Conner's been more like into the gym like back in college. And I was not like terribly into it.

04:48
Alan Chen
And so when I moved to Austin the end of 2024, everybody here, it's like a whole health and wellness sort of scene. And I think like there's a greater macro shift towards that direction wholly anyways. But yeah, I started doing the Whole gym thing. I started eating a bunch of protein. I was and still am trying to hit, like, 200 grams of protein a day, which sucks for anybody else out there. Conner can vouch for me.

05:08
Hannah Dittman
It's a lot of chicken.

05:10
Alan Chen
It is. There was a day in January of 2025 where me and Conner were at the gym together. So this is like 17 months ago now. And were just, like, complaining to each other about, like, protein bars and protein shakes and, like you said, eating pounds of chicken a day. And were like, there just has to be a better option here. They're like, there has to be something that's actually high in protein. And, like, a lot of things say protein on it, but they aren't, like, actually that high in protein. Like, there has to be something actually high in protein that you actually want to eat that. It's not like a chore to scarf this thing down. But it's like, I genuinely. I get excited about eating this thing at night and, like, I want to go to the store and go get it.

05:42
Alan Chen
And the idea for, like, protein ice cream just kind of came to mind. We, like, I'm sure you've seen, like, the Ninja Creamy ice cream trend. And so that was very much a thing at the time. And we thought, like, you know, skim milk, whey protein, there's just, like, something there that makes sense. And so went to our local, like, heb went to our local store to try and find one, and at the time, there was nothing like it. And literally that night, went and bought a Ninja creamy ice cream machine, and we just completely got to work. I think a trademark was filed two days later. Media. We're like, this is our, like, where we're doing this. There's no way around it. And it's been an amazing journey since.

06:13
Hannah Dittman
That's so exciting and so true on so many things that you said. Ice cream is chemistry. I remember being in science class in elementary school and getting to shake it in a little bag and go through the laborious process of making it protein. Definitely. Totally understand the importance of the hesitate to even say the word trend, but consumer shift that has happened there. And how fun to get to do not only a fun, interesting, exciting product that people love, but to be doing it alongside a best friend where you're having a lot of fun doing it too. And I'm sure that comes through in the company results. Speaking of Frozen 1, I'd love to dive in a little bit more to your company overview and learn more about the mission, brand and what you guys stand for, positioning and everything you've got.

06:58
Hannah Dittman
Going on over there?

06:59
Alan Chen
Yeah, absolutely. So just a little bit of a summary about who we are. So we are a protein ice cream company which I kind of alluded to. We have our core three flavors which is what we came out with and released in some local Austin stores in the middle of last year. We've got peanut butter chip, we've got chocolate. We've got apple pie. We have a Target exclusive skew which is salted caramel crunch. Kata's got it on display there which that just released at Target nationwide at the end of April. But each of our pints have 40 grams of protein. You have a front side out of the front side out of the top. 400 Calories or less for the entire pint of ice cream.

07:30
Alan Chen
If you guys are familiar with Aven and Jerry's or like we're talking about like 11, 12, 1300 calories and so a tiny fraction of that. And yeah, we like, we got into the local Austin stores like last summer and we just kind of pretty early on realized that there was something bigger happening here. Our me and Conner were like self distributing to stores with dry ice and they were telling us like this is the best selling ice cream in our store, like by far. By the way, horrible freezer in my.

07:52
Conner Mennig
Jeep was not keeping up with the sales demand last summer.

07:55
Hannah Dittman
That's awesome.

07:56
Alan Chen
We kind of built out a broker network because were like, I think there's a much bigger opportunity here. And fast forward today. We are in over 2,300 doors across the US that we've launched into this year, including Wegmans over on the east coast as well as Earth Fair in the Midwest. We are in Fresh Time Schnooks, Heinen's Bushes, London, Byerlys, Kowalski's Foxtrot on the west coast. We are in Nugget markets. We're in Raley's, we're in Bristol Farms in Texas. We're in Central Market.

08:23
Alan Chen
And then our biggest event to date so far has been we launched into Target Nationwide at the end of April where with our four SKUs, it's been an incredible experience and happy to say our buyer let us know at last glance that were number one in dollars per store per week in the wellness expert set, which we are beyond about at this stage of our company.

08:42
Hannah Dittman
Congratulations on all the huge success and the quick to scale success as well. That's so exciting. Clearly a huge customer demand there and a big differentiation. So what has the journey of Fundraising been like and capital needs throughout all of this growth and expansion. Obviously, for everyone listening in, there's like two big hills that you're climbing. Getting into retail. The first is obviously breaking through and getting the invite and the ability to get into retail. And then the second is the reality of what that actually is going to entail from an operational and capital needs standpoint. So how did you guys get started? What was the story of how you put all this together from a financing standpoint and what has that been like?

09:27
Alan Chen
Yeah, absolutely. There's been, like, three rounds, I guess. Like, not. Not even, like formal rounds, but I think there's been, like, three fundraising milestones that have been super important to our journey. The first one, and I think, like, probably most founders, and they'll resonate with this. There's the first round, which was kind of last May, last June, which was. We had nothing but, like, a story and a product. We had absolutely no financials. We had absolutely no retail commits. This was like a point in the company where we just needed somebody to, like, take a bet on us. It was largely on at that point. They were largely betting on category and they were betting on us. And so that's like that initial round of capital that just, like, got you off the ground.

10:09
Alan Chen
And that for us was a local investor in Austin that Conner actually met at, like, a house party, which is pretty cool. Like, a prominent trader in Austin. And we ended up raising our first 250k from him. And that was honestly, like, that got us off the ground. We could not be here without that initial check. That first person to believe in us, that first person that also kind of sets the terms. So we raised that on a safe and that kind of set the terms for everybody else who would subsequently end up joining that round. But, like, can't talk about how critical that initial round was for us. And then after that, the next kind of big milestone was when we landed Target. And so that was in like, the middle of January.

10:46
Alan Chen
And Target let us know, hey, we have a reset in three months. We want you in 1500 doors. We'll take a target exclusive SKU also, like, you can pull this off, right?

10:54
Hannah Dittman
Wow.

10:54
Alan Chen
You're like, right, of course we can. Let's go do it tomorrow. Like, immediately kicked off into fundraise mode and were like, we need to go get money immediately. And our saving grace ended up being we met a group that I'm sure you're familiar with. The angel group principals are Chris Robb and Adam Sprague and Jared Cohen. And we had multiple folks introduce us from different angles because we. I think that's that early stage of capital before the ED again, like, we ended last year at 29k in revenue. We, like, we did not have a real revenue story to tell. At the end of last year, we had a velocity story to tell in seven stores. But I think that this, again, was really, like, you needed to find people that most institutional firms are really not looking at people at that size.

11:35
Alan Chen
And so we needed those guys to take that bet on us. And we got introduced to them. We had our first call, and it was Synergy. Right away, they were looking at the category. They had talked to a few other players in the category, and they said none were exactly the right fit or the right size. And we came in, and after our first call with them, I remember we got an email back two hours later, and they're like, guys, like, let's. Let's have another talk tomorrow. Like, we like to move fast on things. And that was like, the most excited we'd ever been. I think we'd kind of remember that those, like, two weeks, we probably had 15 VC calls. Every person who we possibly could ever introduce to somebody talked to firms.

12:08
Alan Chen
And we got so many people just saying, like, it's too early. It's not a good fit. It's just too early. And we found those guys who were willing to move early on things. And so I think that's really important. You have to find the people that are willing to move early. And then we ended up closing an oversubscribed $2 million round with them, which was incredible. It allowed us to get our feet under us. It allowed us to perform and deliver to Target and we not be here without them. And then we are in the midst of actually closing another round right now, which we can go into. But things have.

12:34
Alan Chen
We've had so many good nonsenses and so many fortuitous introductions and along the way, and I think, like, finding the right people who are willing to move at your stage of the business, I.

12:44
Hannah Dittman
Think is the most important thing, definitely. And that's surprising even too, with a big retailer PO and like, quite a lot of distribution on the horizon, to still have some hesitancy from institutional VCs, I think just shines a little bit of a light of where the market's been at, because I think in prior lives, that may have been a little bit of an easier road. And it's awesome that people were able to lean in, see the vision, see where you guys are going, and see the opportunity and hopefully will be huge success for them and. And help right. Size things a little bit down the road for everyone else. And awesome that it enabled you guys to get where you needed to go.

13:21
Hannah Dittman
What do you think some of the biggest challenges, specifically in your category, frozen and frozen wellness desserts, I think especially can be a little challenging sometimes to navigate because the supply chain complexities are a little bit harder and obviously there's a lot of operational chaos that's going on and things freight and things can be a little bit more expensive. How do you feel like that category played into capital needs or fundraisings or lessons learned at all?

13:50
Conner Mennig
Yeah, good question. Yeah. Frozen is intuitively just very difficult. Everything from warehousing, shipping, is even producing, making ice cream. It's not a simple product at all to manufacture. So all that is obviously very complicated. And early on we have a lot of investors that are just like, we don't invest in frozen. Let's just like, we don't do frozen, which is just such a difficult thing to even have a conversation about. But what we realized is having such a differentiated product in a frozen category really set us apart. I think early on were pitching ourselves and the differentiation of a product that has so much potential rather than last year's sales or rather than the frozen category itself. And I think that really gave us the head start of why the Angel Group and other investors really believed in US.

14:30
Conner Mennig
Because 40 grams of protein in ice cream that is low calorie and healthy and good ingredients for you, like this is bound to go viral. This is a product that's bound to blow off among every retailer in America. And I think that's really what the hump that we really had to get over. Yes, it's a difficult category, but it is a very unique, very exciting product within the category among protein being on such a hot way throughout America right now. So I think we had a lot of the right factors that gave us the momentum to get where we are right now. And I think back all the time is those are the same factors why we started the company. Alan.

14:59
Conner Mennig
I were just two consumers who wanted a better option of eating protein, of finding something that's actually tasted good, actually craveable, you look forward to eating it. And that kind of all just built its element in the snowball effect where we are definitely.

15:11
Hannah Dittman
And how have you guys divided between the two of you, either the fundraising process or operations? What's the division of labor been like? And do you have any advice for anyone else that has a multi person founding team that might be able to learn something from your all experience.

15:27
Conner Mennig
It's interesting, right? We came in with enough CPG experience. We started January of 2025. So Alan and I just intuitively had to figure out what are both of our skill sets. Obviously discipline and we're the most driven people ever of starting this and getting this far, but figuring out who's best at what and how do we separate. I've been more so on the operations side of things and finance side of things this far in the company. And then Alan's been more so on the ice cream actual production. He was more of the brains of actually making it from one the ninja creamy machine now at massive scale and everything with being a day to day the ingredients and what we need to change to the product and commercializing new flavors. So that's kind of how we differentiate things.

16:04
Conner Mennig
I would say marketing and sales are more on Alan's side of the company as well.

16:08
Alan Chen
Fundraising is very much like we are both present at every single investor meeting. It's I think any sort of like shared founder situation. I think the investor side, both people need to be present.

16:18
Conner Mennig
Wells knew whether it's Costco, Walmart, Wegmans, Target, we're going to those meetings, we're talking to the buyers, we're telling our story as well as. And we can talk about hiring everything and. But I think there's no better sales rep and the people who actually, you know, started it.

16:31
Hannah Dittman
So were there any parallels that you guys saw between your conversations with Target and the other buyers that you've got excited and got on board with your brand and the investors that you were speaking to or did you find the conversations to be anchored on very different things and topics?

16:47
Alan Chen
Such an interesting question to kind of like parallel between those two. There's like obviously there's a ton of overlap. I think you go in there, the story we tell to both, we always tell the same story. We talk about the product the same. I think the differentiation comes like when you talk about the category as a whole. I think when you're talking to investors you're thinking a little bit bigger picture and you're thinking more like trumps and that sort of thing and you think about outcomes. Whereas for retailers you're very much going in there and like how do I add to your specific set? How am I different than everything else in your set? How am I to bring in commercial customers to your set? Obviously you probably don't go to the financial side with the retailers too.

17:19
Alan Chen
But that like story that you baseline set for your company and you get the reps in it a hundred percent. Helps with both of those. Conner, like, we talk about this all the time. When we started this company, were nowhere close to the speakers that we are right now. And not that either of us are, like, the most brilliant orators ever, but, like, I think that the ability to tell the story again and the reps and the. That muscle that you build and the ability to answer questions on the fly, which is like, it would've mortified me three years ago, asked questions on a podcast like this, I would've freaked out.

17:48
Alan Chen
But I think that building that muscle again and again, that helps you in both the retail meetings and the investor meetings, because you are bound to get a million questions that you don't expect and you can't really plan for. And building that muscle of, like, critical thinking, knowing your business cold, having told this story a million times, important on both sides.

18:05
Conner Mennig
So tailoring that time to whether it's being an investor or a buyer at a grocery store, there's a such a different story to tell. What the value is for them and want for them. So it's exciting.

18:15
Hannah Dittman
Yeah. I feel like being a founder, you sharpen the pencil at every angle because you're doing every single thing that can be done, and you're getting better at so many different things. That's awesome that you've even noticed your own personal growth along this journey. Obviously, I feel like founders have a huge passion for the mission of what they're doing, their products, the customers they're serving, and their reason for being in the world. But I do think also a lot of successful founders, they have a pull towards personal development and improving themselves, and that's a big draw for why they want to be an entrepreneur as well. And clearly that comes through with you all. Reflecting back on the fundraising journey so far and the current process that you're in now.

18:58
Hannah Dittman
What are some of the lessons you learned or kind of the biggest challenges that you've overcome throughout the process that you think others could learn from or might be helpful for them to understand before they go into something like that?

19:11
Alan Chen
I think the number one thing that I come back to on this and, like, the best advice that we could give, this is not new to anybody, but I just like, really honing down on this. It is all relational. Everything is relational. Every single thing that we've gotten to, whether it's retail relationships or investor relationships or networking for team building and recruiting, it has all been relational. It's who you Know and like making sure you just, even if somebody doesn't help you in that current moment or whatever it is, like you have to like keep good relationships with everybody. I think there's just, that's a good mantra to go on in life. But in business and in the world that we're in, relationships are the most important thing.

19:48
Alan Chen
The way people speak about you, if people like generally perceive you positively, whether you're caring, whether you're helpful, that stuff is just so important. Unbelievably important. Every single thing that's happened to us has been because of relationships. Like the introduction to the Angel Group, all relational. The Angel Group that made a million introductions for us, one of them ending up being Brand Foundry, who were raising this current. And so you cannot date anymore how important relationships are. And asking everybody in your network, having people in your network, asking them all for your help, being likable, like, just can't say anything more about how important that is.

20:21
Conner Mennig
On top of that, the CPG ecosystem really not that big. And with every no, we got no, we can't get financing or no, we're not interested investing you, they brothers said, go in that direction. This is a good introduction. We learned something from everything. I mean, we got a hundred no's before we got yes, but every single one of those no's taught us something and gave us better direction of finding the right partners finally. And I think that goes for everybody. Every retailer that says no, I'm like, what? Why'd they say no? And then looking back six months ago, it's like, oh, that's why I'm so glad they did.

20:50
Hannah Dittman
Running out, great outlook and a great positive attitude to approach things with as well. I want to circle back on some of the milestones that you guys are working through and where you're headed next. So obviously the first round of first check in was to just exist and be able to kind of build the dream. The second one was to help fuel the big expansion and the big mass retail opportunity that you had ahead of you and open the gateway to the big growth journey that you're on. What's the next milestone and where are you oriented and looking forward to now in your company?

21:22
Alan Chen
I love this question. So this. Yeah, I think you laid that out perfectly. This latest round that we're raising with the Brand Foundry team, this is five and a half million dollar round, which is incredible beyond excited for this year. And I think you laid it out so well. Like the first check was just existing, just having the ability to do anything make even a little bit of product was really that allowed us to meet targeted reality. And I think that this round here is very gross and team focused. One of the big things we've been realizing is team bandwidth and the ability like our aggregate production as a team. The bottleneck right now is like human productivity. We just don't have the humans in house as well as the knowledge to really take this to the next level.

22:02
Alan Chen
We've, me and Conner have all of the ambition and energy in the world, but I think we're also smart enough to know what we don't know and that there's people and specialized functions that know this a million times better than we do. And not that we won't ever be like the engine that's running the thing, but I think that we are very much aware that the rest of the team around us is going to be so important to the outcome of our company. And so that is one of the main focuses of this round that we're raising here is team building, going and building out. The team of killers that have done this before know what they're doing that is such a priority right now.

22:34
Alan Chen
And so for anybody listening, we're out looking for like a VP of sales as well as a director, head of marketing. And so those are two of the roles that we're really excited about. We actually just hired a COO who was previously VP of supply chain and Van Leeuwen ice cream. He commercialized over 90 flavors for them. He knows every coat packer in America and so he's actually moving to Austin from New York for the role. So we had the beginnings of the team starting to come together, but that's one of the main focuses for us right now is building that all star team around us and then investing in a brand, investing in a marketing and investing in a product. That's really the way we're looking at it. We want to every angle that's important and make sure that we're the.

23:10
Hannah Dittman
Winner in these huge congrats. What an exciting time to be you. I'm sure this is just like one of the, you know, building business is like a roller coaster and a lot of times it can feel like a scary down or different waves. And you guys are clearly one of the really fun loop parts where you're like super happy to be on the ride, I'm sure. Sounds like so many amazing things are happening. Building the family, building the company, being able to unlock a lot of cool opportunities that are going to make A huge difference.

23:39
Hannah Dittman
I'm sure for you all getting a huge round done and being up and to the right on that trajectory, that's all of these things are no small feat and them all happening at one time is, I'm sure just elation and a lot of exciting momentum for you all. What has kind of been the team journey like to date? Obviously team expansion is a big priority now that you've been moving and grooving. How did it all start out and evolve over time and throughout the company's journey who has been involved either from an advisor or a team perspective to this point?

24:11
Alan Chen
Yeah, so obviously started me and Conner in his apartment with the ninja creamy. The very start there. The first person that we brought on was actually one of my roommates. His name's Jack. He's our creative director. He has a real like. He's like a world class filmmaker, cinematographer, video content creator and so he was so essential early on and he's still with us full time now. He runs all of our socials, every piece of content we have ever created. He is absolutely pivotal part of the team and so he came on really early on and we knew very early on that we wanted to be digitally native socials were going to be really important and we knew that having somebody fill that role was non negotiable from there. The next person that we brought on was actually a. So his name is Matt Scott.

24:54
Alan Chen
He's over in the. On the east coast. He is our ice cream professional. We just call him head of ice cream. He might disagree actually. He's like drinking ice cream. It's probably less fun for him now but he's like our head of R and D. He goes out to our co packers at the different production runs and he's a absolute wizard on the ice cream side of things and so many relationships with the different vendors and so he's fantastic. We brought him on in, that was probably February of this year and we really recently just brought one of my other roommates. His name's Isaiah. He has an ad operations background and he's been brought on as kind of like community management, influencer management, paid growth, paid ads, meta ads, that sort of thing.

25:34
Alan Chen
That is another part of the company that we realized was absolutely essential. We're very much influencer. Additionally, native social content. How important all of that is having somebody whose time and energy is devoted to that. Super, super important. And then coo. His name's Dave from the guy from Van Leeuwen who I was alluding to he is joining on July 1 is his first day full time. We started with having like an advisory contracting bas and then we pretty quickly were like, hey, we, I think we need you full time on the team here. He's running on July 1st and then we're. We've got some other people in the pipeline. Hopefully we'll be making some other key, pivotal hires here in the next few weeks.

26:10
Hannah Dittman
Super exciting and definitely scrappy. It's interesting to see how the needs unfolded over time and it makes total sense, right? It was. It's very clear as your kind of production scale that you needed to start filling that in and the marketing side where when it needed to evolve first, really exciting and again, huge congrats for everything that you guys have accomplished with the little small team and beginning days with a Ninja Creamy. I mean to think where you are now compared to that is night and day. That's really awesome. Has anything on this founder journey or fundraising journey surprised you or not matched your initial expectations about what you thought it would be like going into it.

26:52
Conner Mennig
At first, I like the operations of CPG is so complex. It's unbelievable. Like you don't realize two years ago you go to grocery store and you just see all these products and it's like, oh cool, I can buy whatever on this side. Every time I go to grocery store now I see a product and realize how complicated it is to get that product there, how hard that business had to work to get their product in the store. And then managing it, managing the promos behind it, managing the notes, stockouts, it's on the shelf. Like just the complexity of how CPG works and the American supply chain as well and just how ruthless grocery can be sometimes. But that was like one of the first things that was how surprising is like, wow, this is really hard.

27:32
Conner Mennig
It's like you make a product in a grocery store, it's like, okay, we'll sell it. No, this is. It's difficult. It takes years and years to get into these grocery stores. And it's unbelievable how many really cool brands are out there that are all fighting for the same thing.

27:43
Alan Chen
I constantly think about that. And like one of the questions you asked earlier, Hannah, was about navigating Frozen with investors. And like I constantly think about this. Frozen is tough for a million different reasons. Think about refrigerated, think about like a yogurt brand that has like a month or two month shelf life on it. Our shelf life on our product is two years. Think about our ability to hold it in store just Add on to this question, but then to the previous question. Like I think every single category has strengths and weaknesses. Beverage is like you have such high ceilings and such high velocity, but it is so crowded. If frozen is there's a lot of logistical complexities and that's the downside. But because of that there's not quite as many brands in and there's some that have had amazing outcomes.

28:21
Alan Chen
I think like every single category. Looking at what the positives and negatives are and really highlighting the positives that you talked in musters is one of the things I was thinking about from previous question.

28:30
Hannah Dittman
Yeah, really well said and so true. There is no silver bullet for any problem in CPG. There's no silver bullet for a market, for a category and if there ever was, it was crowded immediately and flocked to so totally agree. I think finding the passion and the swim lane that you really want to just master and learn and sticking with it and just like falling in love with it for its positives and its flaws and trying to work around it and make it work for you is an amazing approach. And I think being the master educator of your category with investors like you're mentioning is also really helpful not only to showcase that you know your stuff, but also just to help guide the conversation in the direction that you want it to go and the content that you want to cover.

29:15
Hannah Dittman
I would love to pick your guys brain on what you think worked really well in the last couple of rounds that you've closed. Obviously you've had a lot of fundraising success and a lot of awesome momentum. When you think through the sticking points of where people really started getting excited with you guys or what you felt like you did really well in the pitch process or the pieces of information that people were really anchoring on to build their conviction, what do you think the standout parts of your business performance or your pitch communication that allowed you to ultimately get your fundraises done?

29:50
Conner Mennig
I think of the one hand, just like how fast we've grown. I feel like there was investors we talked to two, three months apart at a time and have a reoccurring call and oh, we have 500 new doors. Oh, we just landed that in a retailer. And I think just the speed at which we got yeses and commitments from retailers was impressive. I also want to shout out Central Market here in Texas. We had incredible velocities off the gate when we launched in Central Market and that data helped us a lot on investor pitches. We've been a great partner since the beginning I actually cold called the buyer and that's how we got into central market. So that's been a great retailer for us. But their Velocity story really helped us earlier in spring with a lot of our investor conversations for sure.

30:26
Alan Chen
To add on to that, I think that category really matters in our framing of our positioning in the category and how large it is and how big the opportunity is. I think that we've done a good job at that. We a lot of times look at like analogous brands in different categories and compare how they're revolutionizing this category and how we can do the same thing for ours. I think that painting that story and choosing the right brands and the right categories to tell that story about, I think that can really like reframe things in a investor's mind. Like, oh shoot, they're right. Like that opportunity is here. I think that's super, super important. I also think we'd be nothing without the product that we've built. I think we genuinely have the best tasting product in our category.

31:02
Alan Chen
From taste to texture to mouthfeel to all of it, I think we have the best product in the category. I think that has spoken for itself time and time again. Every single one of our investors has tried us, has tried the competitors, has tried the rest of the set. And I think that product has really been something that we've stood on this entire time and was something that absolutely essential to our success.

31:22
Hannah Dittman
Really, really interesting thought and picking up on a lot of key anchor points and pillar, obviously product first mindset, making sure that's something you guys are really proud of and is going really well. You've clearly built a big momentum engine that's generated a lot of consumer demand and retailer demand that has helped. I think people feel like the wave is coming with you guys and then obviously have executed consistently across a lot of different things to keep that going and make that happen operationally. When you think through the demand engine, I know you mentioned earlier how important social and digital native was for your All's brand. Do you feel like that has been the key to success in retail for you is awareness and social driven content that then converts in with retailers?

32:09
Hannah Dittman
Or how do you feel like that has all worked out for you, that you've had command and control over the actual retail performance and velocity portion of the business, which seems to be probably arguably one of the most critical in terms of fundraising?

32:24
Alan Chen
Yeah, that is like the thing that matters at the end of the day. And we've been really successful in our Velocity stories that we've been able to tell, which is I think that maybe the three big things that I'd point to first is just starting with product. The product is fantastic when people eat it. Like is this 40 grams of protein in it. That's crazy. Less than 400 calories. I'm going to go buy another one. I'm going to go tell my friends about it. I think that is so, so important. But you need to get to that first trial point first. Before you can ever get somebody repeating, before you can get somebody telling their friends about it. You need to get to that first trial point first.

32:54
Alan Chen
I think for us, packaging is one of the big things that has been a win for us. Just a really clear, concise packaging that tells exactly who we are. Not a whole lot of fluff and not a whole lot of busyness. I think that's been really essential to our success. And then adding in what you're. What you were saying, the social story, like in 2026. I don't think it can be possibly overstated just how important this social world is right now to build brands. And so I think that our understanding of all three of those components have all led into the story of our velocities thus far. And we're at a great point from a velocity story, but we are fully expecting to continue to increase that over time.

33:30
Alan Chen
We have some new really incredible flavors which I unbiasedly, I'm going to say these are best flavors that we have produced by far. We are getting better and better at this thing. The product portfolio grows as we bring in more fun, exciting flavors and as our brand awareness grows. I'm really bullish that our velocities are only going to be on the way up from here and this is the floor to go up from.

33:51
Hannah Dittman
So exciting. I can't wait to try it. My mouth is watering. I'm already ready for my ice cream break today.

33:56
Alan Chen
We'll send you some oat.

33:59
Hannah Dittman
I can't wait. Well, I'd love to pivot into a Slack case study question. As you know, startup CPG has the largest Slack community in the industry with now over 35,000 members. I'd love to pull a question directly from our channel and have you answer it as a case study for any founders that might have a similar question. Today's question is how should I ask investors for feedback?

34:20
Alan Chen
Great question. I think this kind of goes to something that Conner was mentioning earlier. Every single conversation that you have is an opportunity to draw value from it. I guess the three big ways, one, like the conversation goes somewhere really productive, but the two like downsides, you know, they say no to it. First is why. I think that the why, which is basically what Sklesch is asking about. But asking like, hey, is category. Is it something about our pitch? Like we're looking for constructive feedback here. So, so open to constructive feedback at every turn. Having real humility, not having ego, like making it very clear like I want to learn. I think that people truly respond to that. I think that people like, absolutely. Like you can tell when somebody has ego and when somebody doesn't.

35:01
Alan Chen
You can tell when somebody's truly coming to you asking for help. And more times than not in somebody is legitimately asking for help. People are good. People are generally good. People want to help. And so I think people will give you honest feedback there if you really come to them in a direct, honest way. And then the other thing is like always asking for what introductions can you make every single turn here we are always asking for introductions. Those are the. To a founder who just got to know which you're going to get million of them and we've gotten 10 million of them. To each of those, figuring out how you extract value from each situation, how to use it and turn into a positive.

35:33
Conner Mennig
I think sometimes showing vulnerability is great because we're humans. There were several times where Alan I, we had four calls with a firm or an investor. It was going really well. And then on a Friday you get an email that's hey, we're out of interest, we're going to pass. And we easily could have been like, oh shoot. There were several times where Alan are like, could we honestly just jump on a call and just talk about why just feedback, not us saying like just us asking and having an open 30 minute discussion about their, where their heads was at and their hesitations with us. We learned so much from that. So obviously it's hard to put your ego aside and be like, let's talk about why you don't want to invest in my brand.

36:04
Conner Mennig
This is the best thing to do right now because yeah, it just carries us at the point where we're going to grow from. So I think just admitting that is as the best thing that we did now that would be our advice.

36:13
Hannah Dittman
Really well said. You guys. I am rooting for you not just because I love your products and they're awesome, but also because your passion, your grit, your humility and your just good, kind nature comes through. So clearly it's so clear that you want to be helpful to everyone else listening in and are rooting for a lot of people in the CPG ecosystem outside of just yourselves. And I think being a team player, being humble like that, being open and being just optimistic and positive about what you're doing and the road that you're walking in the industry you're in is some of the best things that you can do. And yeah, huge fan and can't say enough good things.

36:50
Alan Chen
Thank you so much, Hannah. You're amazing as well. Thank you so much.

36:53
Hannah Dittman
That's so sweet. Thank you for any other founders that might want to get in touch with you guys or continue the conversation or investors that are chomping at the bit to reach out to you, follow along on your journey or be part of what you've got going on. What's the best way for them to reach you and for the positions that you are trying to fill, what's the best way for any interested candidate to apply and get on board with the awesome stuff that you guys have going on at Frozen One?

37:18
Alan Chen
Amazing. Please reach out on literally any platform. So my email is Alan A l a n frozen1.com mine is Conner c.

37:29
Conner Mennig
O n n e [e-mail] we also.

37:32
Alan Chen
We post a bunch of stuff on our company social, which is@ frozen one protein, across socials. Like me and Conner post stuff on our personals and stuff too. Feel like literally any way to get a hold of us. We are super receptive and happy to chat.

37:44
Conner Mennig
A hundred percent.

37:45
Hannah Dittman
Awesome. Yeah, they're on it. I call it global hours when you work 24 7. So they're working global hours. They're excited for you to get in touch with them. And let's get these roles filled for these guys. It was so nice chatting with you. Thank you so much for the words of wisdom and the candid anecdotes about what you guys have been going through and what you've got going on. Congrats on all the huge success and I'm super excited to continue to follow along on the Frozen One journey.

38:12
Alan Chen
Thank you so much, Hannah. Appreciate it, Hannah.

38:16
Hannah Dittman
Well, friends, we've now arrived together at the end of another episode of the Startup CPG podcast, the top globally ranked podcast in CPG. And if you love this podcast, you'll love our Slack community even more. Here at Startup CPG, we're a community of brands and experts and you should join. Sign [e-mail] you'll then get an invite to our online Slack community. Community of over 35,000 All Star CPG members hear about amazing events near you and all our special opportunities to get you in front of buyers, investors, brands and more. It's a free community. So what are you waiting for? I'll catch you on the next episode and I'll see you on the slack.