Founder Feature: Charlie Gentry of TruJoy

In this episode of the Startup CPG Podcast, Grace Kennedy interviews Charlie Gentry, the founder of TruJoy, a frozen Greek yogurt brand based in Austin, Texas. Charlie shares his inspiring journey as a solo founder, detailing his motivations for creating TruJoy and navigating the competitive food industry. He discusses the development process behind his yogurt, including the creation of innovative flavors that resonate with consumers and his commitment to quality through effective product formulation.

Charlie also shares his strategies for expanding TruJoy's retail presence and managing distribution channels, emphasizing the importance of affordability and accessibility in reaching a broader audience. They highlight the value of community support and collaboration among entrepreneurs, showcasing how networking with fellow founders has positively impacted TruJoy's growth.

Tune in to gain insights from Charlie's journey, and don’t forget to subscribe for more inspiring stories from the world of consumer packaged goods!

Listen in as they share about:

• Inspiration Behind TruJoy
• Product and Flavor Development
• Brand Name and Packaging
• Challenges of Being a Solo Founder
• Resource Management and Funding
• Marketing Strategies and Social Media Presence
• Challenges of Cold Chain Logistics
• Retail Expansion and Distribution
• Community and Networking
• Future Plans
  
  

Episode Links:

Website: https://www.trujoyyogurt.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlie-gentry-1382b7b2/ 

Don't forget to leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify if you enjoyed this episode. For potential sponsorship opportunities or to join the Startup CPG community, visit http://www.startupcpg.com.

Show Links:

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• Questions or comments about the episode? Email Daniel at [e-mail]
• Episode music by Super Fantastics
  
  

Creators & Guests

Host

Grace Kennedy

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.

Charlie Gentry
I always love to cook and serve food. That's kind of my way of expressing affection, but other than that, no professional experience in food. So I bought a 360 page textbook about making ice cream. Turns out ice cream is really a science problem with the ingredients. There's several levers you can pull and it's got to be balanced. And that's part of what makes Truejoule yogurt so creamy and delicious. Fat, 5% milk fat with proudly real milk from California. The real thing just tastes better. If you know true joy is going to last, it's going to because it tastes good. I'm optimistic. I'm obviously biased that we have a delicious product, but time will tell.

00:45
Daniel Scharff
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the startup CPT podcast. This is Grace and I am so excited to be back with another founder feature today. I'm talking to Charlie Gentry, the founder of Truejoy Yogurt. Truejoy makes delicious frozen greek yogurt and they were actually a 2025 Shelfie winner in the Frozen desserts category. Their frozen yogurt is packed with protein and probiotics, but it's also simply delicious. Charlie and I talked about everything from the challenges of cold chain logistics to expanding into retailers like Whole Foods and how he got his start by reading a 360 page manual on making ice cream. I hope you enjoy this episode and as always, let me know what you think.

01:32
Charlie Gentry
Everybody party.

01:33
Daniel Scharff
The startup CPG podcast has become a top 0.5% globally ranked podcast. That makes it number one in the world in CPG.

01:42
Charlie Gentry
We're so excited and it's largely thanks to your reviews to say thank you and celebrate. We are going to run a giveaway where someone leaving a review can win these awesome brand new Apple AirPod Pro Max two s. To find out details, check out our email that's going out on October 22, or check details in our slack channel. Thank you, everybody.

02:04
Daniel Scharff
Hello, everyone and welcome back to the start of CPG podcast. I'm so excited to interview Charlie Gentry today, the founder of Truejoy Yogurt, which is a Shelfie awards winning frozen yogurt brand. So welcome to the show, Charlie. I'd love for you to introduce yourself and true joy to our listeners.

02:24
Charlie Gentry
Thanks for having me on here, Grace. Yeah, true joy Yogurt is an Austin, Texas based frozen greek yogurt brand. We've been at it about a year and a half now and like you mentioned, very excitingly, just won the shelfie and we're growing and excited to tell you a little bit more about our delicious and nutritious frozen greek yogurt and where we're trying to take this thing.

02:44
Daniel Scharff
Yes. I'm so excited to learn more, and I was one of the shellfish judges, so I got to try your delicious products, and they are so good. And I was thinking about how there was a phase that felt like there was a frozen yogurt shop on every single corner. And then that phase kind of ended, and I hadn't had frozen yogurt in a long time. And so when I got to try yours again, I was like, wait, frozen yogurt's so good. I forgot about this. And really, yours has a very, like, actual creamy texture. It doesn't have that, like, iciness that I feel like frozen yogurt sometimes has.

03:19
Daniel Scharff
But anyway, I'd love to hear a little bit more, I guess, about why you decided to start truejoy in the first place and what the journey was like leading up into a year and a half ago when you finally got to launch.

03:33
Charlie Gentry
Yeah. So I, too, remember the days of frozen yogurt stands on every corner, and they kind of went away, but also when we had those frozen yogurt shops, every corner, you still, you had to have it soft serve fresh there. You couldn't have it in a pint, in the comfort of your own home and the convenience of your own freezer. So that was definitely part of the impetus to start this whole thing. And I'm also just a health nut and really wanted a clean ingredient ice cream alternative that also had a respectable nutrition profile. So the very start of this whole project, I mapped out a target nutrition profile and just a little more context. I was a geologist in oil and gas, had no real experience in CPG. I always loved to cook and serve food.

04:19
Charlie Gentry
That's kind of my way of expressing affection. But other than that, no professional experience in food. So I bought a 360 page textbook about making ice cream. Turns out ice cream is really a science. Problem with the ingredients are several levers you can pull, and it's got to be balanced. And that's part of what makes true joy yogurt so creamy and delicious. And a lot of frozen yogurts out there are. They're icy because they're so. They use non dairy fat replacers or fake sugars that just adversely affect the texture.

04:56
Daniel Scharff
And you guys use, like, just regular good yogurt, right?

05:01
Charlie Gentry
Yeah. It's a greek yogurt base. It's a full fat, 5% milk fat with real milk, proudly real milk from California. And, yeah, that's, you know, the real thing. Just tastes better. You know, true joy is going to last. It's going to because it tastes good. And I, you know, I'm optimistic. I'm obviously biased that we have a delicious product, but in time will tell.

05:23
Daniel Scharff
Well, you know, as a shelfie's judge, as I said, we, you know, we also are, can say that it's a delicious product. So you're not alone in that feeling. I will say. And another thing I wanted to ask in terms of the formulation of treasure yogurt is you use this real milk, you know, greek yogurt. And then what are the other elements you use to sort of a keep that nutrition profile you wanted, but still have it taste rich and decadent and not have that taste of like, you know, a fake treat. Like it still tastes like a really delicious treat. So what are the other elements of the yogurt that allow that to happen?

06:02
Charlie Gentry
Yeah, so we, you know, it's greek yogurt, milk, cream, cane sugar, and then guar gum and carabine gum. And that's what makes up our base, you know, the gum. Some people like to snub them, but that's part of what, you know, just during the logistics and cold chain transport, temperature shock can, you know, you've had sandy ice cream before and that helps prevent that. It's all natural then cane sugar. So we use proudly cane sugar, about 50% less than a regular ice cream. And the sugar is important for two things. One, the flavor, you know, compared to monk fruit or a stevia, it just doesn't have that afterbite that has. And then the chemical properties of sugar compared to fake sugars are different. And that's part of what makes it scoopable right out of the freezer.

06:49
Charlie Gentry
And that was kind of a qualitative quality that the product had to have is it had to be scooped out of the freezer. I don't want you to have to sit this on the counter for 15 minutes before you can take a bite because then it's, you don't want it anymore.

07:03
Daniel Scharff
Totally. You want it when you want it.

07:04
Charlie Gentry
You've all been there. Yeah. I like to eat my ice cream. I like to open the freezer, take a couple bites, put it back. No one saw it. Nothing happened. And get on with it. And absolutely.

07:15
Daniel Scharff
A little bit of midday ice cream never hurt anybody. Little pick me up.

07:18
Charlie Gentry
If you have it for breakfast, you may not have had a little bit of peanut butter chocolate chip for breakfast. Dessert.

07:25
Daniel Scharff
I love it. Okay, well, so going back a little bit to some of those, like, earlier development stages when, you know, you bought this huge textbook about making ice cream. Were you just, like, trying the recipes in your home kitchen?

07:38
Charlie Gentry
Yeah, sort of had my grandmother's little freeze it and run it ice cream maker. I'm sure a lot of listeners have one of those and just started throwing things together, took super detailed notes on everything. And really, because the base formulation is so scientific, I really kind of concocted it on an excel spreadsheet to where you can map out the different components of the sugar that milk fat, the milk solids, not fat, etcetera, and then learn what levers you can pull and make a batch, freeze it, make another batch, freeze it, and then compare and contrast, take notes and iterate. And after a little while, I said, okay, I got to buy a real freezer to see how that changes it. So I bought a commercial ice cream freezer.

08:25
Daniel Scharff
Wow.

08:25
Charlie Gentry
And, yeah, it took a 20 amp power cord, and my apartment didn't have that, so I had to buy generator two and run an extension cord through my apartment. And every Saturday morning I'd fire up the generator and freeze several batches and then put them in the freezer for hard freezing and see what would happen.

08:44
Daniel Scharff
Wow. Did you ever have any, like, power outages because you were running so much power?

08:50
Charlie Gentry
No, no. I mean, it's on the generator. I courteous enough to wait till 09:00 in the morning to fire it up on Saturdays.

09:03
Daniel Scharff
Yeah, no, that makes sense. And so that was stage two, I suppose. When did you feel like you landed on a recipe you were happy with? And then when did you feel like you were ready to maybe take it out of your apartment?

09:14
Charlie Gentry
Yeah. So it all started. The whole idea was kind of bored around Christmas time, playing around in the kitchen at home. And then probably three months into that, I bought the commercial freezer. And then probably another four or five months after that. So, you know, going on nine months, I thought I had a formula that was ready to go. And while I was developing the formula, I was still learning and feeling out, you know, trying to find a co packer that could work for me and having those early conversations, probably a little bit of faking it till I make it, which I'm kind of still doing.

09:48
Daniel Scharff
I think most founders are.

09:49
Charlie Gentry
Yeah.

09:50
Daniel Scharff
And so did you find a co packer that you could work with?

09:54
Charlie Gentry
I did. Through a weird series of events. Part of our formulation is really difficult to make. We have the live and active cultures, and there's a whole slew of dairy laws that require pasteurization. It was real important to me that our finished product had live and active cultures, and there weren't many folks that could do it. So I was walking down the path of building my own ice cream factory, and because I couldn't find anyone to do it, and the ice cream machine salesman's like, charlie, I know you're serious about this. I can tell. I can also tell you have absolutely no business building your own ice cream factory.

10:31
Charlie Gentry
I know some guys who have some capacity, and he introduced me to them, and that's who I've been working with, the guys who flavor freeze and package it in Dallas, and we have two co packs. Our dairy comes from a group in California, and they're the only people who can make it to our spec. And then, so we ship our California dairy all the way halfway across the country to Dallas, and that's where we flavor freezing package.

10:55
Daniel Scharff
Wow, that milk takes a journey, I guess, but it takes a journey.

10:59
Charlie Gentry
Yeah. Hopefully soon we're sending it back to California.

11:02
Daniel Scharff
Yeah, yeah. I was going to ask about that in terms of also just some of the challenges of cold chain logistics when you are also living in a very hot state. But how have you been navigating getting the ice cream distributed? And I noticed, you know, true trays in a bunch of retailers in the Texas area and other parts of the south. So how have you been navigating dealing with those cold chain logistics and getting it into retailers?

11:29
Charlie Gentry
Yeah, so that's. I spent a lot of time worrying about keeping stuff frozen. You know, on the upstream side, it all comes to us refrigerated, so it's not a big deal. And then after we flavor freeze a packet, you know, it's a, you got to keep it frozen after that. So we've got a frozen storage facility not far from where we make it in Dallas, and we work with three distributors now, big two, unified Kehe, and that's who takes us to whole foods and Market street. And now a bunch of, you know, now that we're in those distributors, a bunch of independents across Texas and neighboring states, and then one other regional distributor who takes us to central market.

12:11
Charlie Gentry
And so, you know, after it leaves our warehouse, it's, I want to say, not my problem anymore, even though I worry about it because, you know, if it falls out and refreezes and we have, you know, somewhat a customer gets in a pint that's been thawed and refrozen, it's just not the same. It deflates if it's icy.

12:28
Daniel Scharff
Yeah, that's happened to me, not with your yogurt, but with like, my freezer broke once and all my ice cream, you know, melted. And then I refroze it thinking like, oh, it'll be fine. And then it was just like completely.

12:41
Charlie Gentry
Yeah, it loses everything and, yeah, it's a bummer. And everyone else has to, you know, everyone from vintage areas to myself and other, you know, local ice cream brands, they all have to worry about it, so. And I'm lucky that I've got to know a lot of these folks. And we lean on each other. I mean, literally sharing frozen trucks from, I was going to the big distributors and everything else.

13:03
Daniel Scharff
Yeah, I was going to ask about that as well. Those, you know, the people you lean on, the resources you lean on because as you said, coming from a completely different field, coming from geology, you said, yep, you know, you're totally new to all this. So as you've been, as you said, faking it till you make it, what sort of resources have you relied on? It sounds like, you know, fellow founders and things like that. But how have you kind of learned as you have gone?

13:28
Charlie Gentry
Yeah, the founder network's awesome. I mean, they've all, they're the best. They're the only people who really, truly understand what you're trying to do, what drives you. And they've been there before. You know, they were dealing the same challenge yesterday. And, you know, it's, you just call them network, go to, you know, startup. CPG has been a phenomenal resource. Meeting people or just like, get on LinkedIn and you've make new friends. Like one of my best new friends in the business, she's got a frozen pizza brand, and I just sent her a note on Instagram, on LinkedIn once, and talk to our moms every day now.

14:03
Daniel Scharff
Yeah.

14:04
Charlie Gentry
Yeah. So if you're thinking about starting something, I just encourage you to reach out. Don't be a stranger, because someone's been there before.

14:10
Daniel Scharff
Yeah. And you need other people, especially when you're working so much by yourself and, you know, or you're on the phone with, you know, partners or things like that, but you're sitting in a room by yourself for a lot of the day. So having other founders who understand, and it is such a unique path to be on people who aren't founders, even myself, you know, I've interviewed so many founders, but I still feel like I don't totally, I would never understand the actual experience until I was a founder myself. Although I don't know if I'll ever be a founder after hearing everyone's stories, it's worth it.

14:40
Charlie Gentry
I mean, if I ever forget, I'm lucky my product is delicious and I'll just have a bite, remind myself why I do it. Yeah, I'm done. After a unfunded phone call, I'm like, I'll go have some blueberry parfait.

14:53
Daniel Scharff
Wow, delicious.

14:55
Charlie Gentry
Yeah.

14:56
Daniel Scharff
So you mentioned, you know, hopefully being in California soon, maybe. So could you talk a little bit about your approach to expanding in retail? And, you know, obviously you're in quite a few in your region, but what's sort of in the works and how have you approached, you know, bringing Truejoy into retailers in a way that's sustainable but also pushing the needle forward?

15:19
Charlie Gentry
Yes. That is very much in a work in progress. It's, I call it category review season right now. So we have a bunch of hooks in the water and we're off to a strong start with Whole Foods. And I think they're happy with us and we'd love to grow with them regionally and strategically. I don't want to stretch ourselves too thin. We're still, we've had some early success. I'm proud and optimistic, but a lot can go wrong still. So definitely want to have a targeted approach with good retail partners. But, you know, we submit to category reviews. I'm not afraid to, you know, try and track down the category manager and send some emails. We're starting to talk to some brokers to help open some doors on that front.

16:00
Charlie Gentry
I haven't pulled the trigger there yet, but, you know, I think as we grow, they'll be able to help manage all these relationships because it starts to get complicated fast. Several distributors, you know, I have my hands full of two big distributors with one DC of each. And as soon as we start multiplying, it'll be nice to have that.

16:19
Daniel Scharff
Yeah. And what's that decision like of deciding to work with a broker for? Could you talk a little bit about that for any founder, maybe who's listening, who's like, when do you need a broker? And why do I need a broker?

16:31
Charlie Gentry
I don't know. The exact answer for when you know, is, I think probably a workload, a function of workload, and we're about there to where I just can't manage the different relationships with retailers and distributors. So, yeah, I'd say once you're in going on 150 stores and have two or three dc's open is probably when you're going to need help, or at least that's what it feels like to me. And then it's also, how fast do you want to grow? If you want to grow slowly, indefinitely. You could never have a broker, probably, but they are going to open a lot of doors, and that's your, you know, I kind of want to cautiously start putting the pedal to the metal. And I think that's why now it's probably about time for us to use brokers.

17:15
Daniel Scharff
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I'm sure it's a little bit different for everybody, depending on, you know, if they're a solo founder or a co founder and all of those many different elements. And I was laughing a little bit in my head of cautiously putting your foot to the Met or pedal to the metal, because I think that's an experience that many founders feel as well, where there's this desire to push forward while also remaining smart and sustainable and understanding everything that's happening. But another thing that you are expanding, were saying before the call is you were talking about some new flavor developments, which is very exciting. Could you talk a little bit more about those flavor developments and why you decided it was time to bring in more flavors?

18:03
Charlie Gentry
Yeah. So we started, we initially launched with five flavors, classic tart, Madagascar vanilla bean, blueberry, parfait, strawberry and lemon velvet. And then central markets been phenomenal to work with, and they let us, they said, can you fill a full shelf, which is normally seven flavors? So I thought peanut butter, chocolate chip, and coffee, the logical next steps. And those have done really well. And I'm learning that customers prefer the more indulgent than the fruitier flavors. And for a whole nother, there's a reason we didn't launch a chocolate and has to do with dairy laws. And we just weren't producing at a scale that made sense to do chocolate. So that's an obvious choice to add. So that's what's in the works. And mint chip, so very excited about both of those.

18:51
Daniel Scharff
And we're going to whip out the excel sheet again to develop those flavors. Or you haven't really.

18:56
Charlie Gentry
No, once the dairy formula is done, it's done. And then it's a matter of how much chocolate or how much mint we put in there. And you just. Trial and error and you put some in, not enough. Add a little more. Oh, too much. Let's back off and then give it to a bunch of friends and see, you know, we don't have the resources for big focus groups to dissect how much chocolate is too much chocolate. So it's really just leaning on friends and family and hope they have their honest with me. But I think. I think we got a winner.

19:25
Daniel Scharff
Yeah.

19:26
Charlie Gentry
Good milk chocolate. I want to do a dark chocolate one day, too, but they want to start with a lighter, milkier chocolate.

19:32
Daniel Scharff
Yeah, that makes sense.

19:34
Charlie Gentry
And then mint chip is going to be a white mint. Wow.

19:37
Daniel Scharff
I'm so excited. I was saying this as well, but mint chip is my favorite, my personal favorite ice cream flavor. So excited for that launch, and hopefully you'll be in more retailers soon enough so I can get it up here in Philadelphia. Yes. And I'm sure your friends and family love you because you're giving them free ice cream, so. Or free frozen yogurt.

19:58
Charlie Gentry
Yeah. In the early days, they ate a lot of not so great frozen yogurt. They had to shout at my little sister. She's probably the most honest critic the whole time, and she'd tell me how it was.

20:10
Daniel Scharff
That's important.

20:11
Charlie Gentry
And she also does all her package redesigns, too.

20:15
Daniel Scharff
Oh, that's so cool. I was just thinking as I was looking at your, you know, if you're listening to this, Charlie has the true joy yogurt in the background of his video. And I was thinking that such a sweet design and that your packaging is also really cute. So do you collaborate with your sister on that, then?

20:34
Charlie Gentry
She does now, yeah, I had a branding group do our stuff originally, but now it's there. She does it all. And her patients might be getting thin with me. Yeah, I have lots of demanding. We got to adjust this just a bit of. Just a bit more.

20:50
Daniel Scharff
Right.

20:50
Charlie Gentry
But she's been very grateful.

20:51
Daniel Scharff
I appreciate your founder, you know, idiosyncrasies. I don't think I could ever work with my brother, to be honest. But, you know, kudos, and I'm sure that's a beautiful collaboration. Yeah, well, you know, I'll interview her next. So another thing you mentioned that I wanted to return to because I, you know, I don't always ask this offenders, but I think it's important to talk about, too, is like, resources. Right. Is something you mentioned and how much capital it takes to grow a brand like this, and especially one that requires cold chain logistics and all of these things. So have you done any fundraising, or are you know, bootstrapping? How are you resourcing this brand?

21:36
Charlie Gentry
Yeah, it's, to date, been bootstrapped. Once upon a time, I had a real job and was able to put some savings away, and I'm running on that. And then again, it's kind of. It depends how fast you want to grow. If you wanted to do it, you know, if sprouts and whole foods gave us the nod and you wanted to put the pedal to the metal, we'd probably be looking at raising funds. I think we could support a national launch, a lot of them now, just the way we're growing and capitalize. But if you wanted to do national blitz and it's a working capital game, then you've got to support with marketing. It's not cheap.

22:10
Daniel Scharff
Yes. Speaking of marketing, definitely not cheap, what has been your approach to navigating the, like, wild west of marketing and online ads and social media and just getting people to see true joy and then go out and buy it?

22:26
Charlie Gentry
Yeah, being frozen makes online marketing tough. And, you know, it just, I would love to ship you pints, and we can ship you pints across the country, but it just come, we have, you have to buy six of them. It comes out to probably $15 each, which is just nothing really sustainable. So all our efforts have been focused boots on the ground. I spend about five days a week demoing in the grocery. And yeah, I'd like to up our digital game. And as we grow our distribution, there'll be more budget to do that. But when there's only you, barely over a hundred places to go buy it now, it's hard to justify some of these big digital ad campaigns. Hopefully these are problems that we'll have the opportunity to address in the coming year.

23:10
Daniel Scharff
Yeah, absolutely. And do you just post any, do you, like, utilize social media at all? On not a paid ads level, on just posting about your brand?

23:20
Charlie Gentry
I will post on Instagram some again. Shout out to my sister for always being honest. She tells me to take about half of them down. And yeah, I want to take a more educational approach to advertising and promoting our brand and, you know, more than just pretty pictures. But teach folks why, you know, true joy is a more nutritious and delicious alternative. I think it's stickier than just a pretty picture and try it. But, you know, doing that on a soundbite is tough. Yeah, well, LinkedIn is great, but that's kind of a business to business type sale where it's a little more long form. But, you know, really want our customers to know they're getting a lot of acupulcture. They're getting twice the protein compared to a regular ice cream or a non dairy alternative. And the benefits of real milk.

24:13
Daniel Scharff
Yeah, absolutely. And that is interesting that you actually have live cultures. So it's kind of like you're also getting probiotics and things like that. Is that what.

24:22
Charlie Gentry
Yeah, I mean, yogurt is literally the original probiotic source, which is pretty cool. You know, they've been culturing milk since. I think they traced it back to the Bedouins like 5000 BC or something. It's just, you know, it's one of the original preservation methods and that's kind of one of the taglines I like to use to describe true Joy's simple, natural and timeless ingredients. Like, it's not playing into something bad. It's just these are simple, traditional things all put together and don't fix what's not broken. Yeah, well, I get this question, too, about the live and agriculture. It's kind of crazy. So they can survive extreme freezing. It's when you cook them, it's about 135 degrees fahrenheit when they start to die off. So they kind of go into a dormant, almost like hibernation while they're frozen.

25:10
Charlie Gentry
And then they reactivate, become more alive once they're more at your body temperature. Not even room temperature.

25:16
Daniel Scharff
That's so interesting. I never would have known that or guessed that. I mean, I guess I did know that you can't get your probiotics, like, hot. Often you have to refrigerate your probiotics or things like that if they're in the capsule form. Yeah, but that's super interesting. And it's cool that you're offering this real food product that also tastes delicious, but it's also good for you. And I think that's something that a lot of people want these days is they don't want something with scary ingredients where you're like, it's like a fake sugar replacement. And you're like, well, what is that, meat? What is that? And you can't read it.

25:51
Charlie Gentry
If you can't read it, you shouldn't eat it. And then it's got to taste good. Even those alternatives, I'm biased, obviously, but it doesn't. Finished product doesn't taste as good. And it's gotta be a better for you. Products gotta be something that you do wanna eat and otherwise you're not gonna eat it. And you're gonna revert to Ben and Jerry's.

26:08
Daniel Scharff
Totally. And some of the alternatives I've tried as well, which, you know, no shade to these people. The texture is more like a mousse almost, which is great. And mousse is delicious, but it doesn't have that same feeling of eating ice cream or frozen yogurt. So that's. I mean, I already said that, but I appreciate the texture of true joy for that reason. Another thing I had a question about, and I'm reminded, as in saying the name true joy, where did the name come from?

26:33
Charlie Gentry
Yeah, so the name was not my idea. I wanted to call it Atlas. Yogurt is greek, you know, Atlas strength, kind of nerdy mythology. Well, why don't you just call it true joy yogurt? It's yogurt spelled backwards, but with a j. All right, mom, end of discussion. As one of the best, maybe most dyslexic. Dyslexic ideas you've ever had. But it's perfect.

26:57
Daniel Scharff
Yeah, that's awesome. And, no, I was kind of just thinking true joy was like, eating ice cream is a true joy, but I love that it's yogurt backwards and with a j. And it's a really sweet name and definitely is seen through your branding as well. Like, the really joyful product, which I appreciate.

27:16
Charlie Gentry
Well, you really have to look for it. But there's everything. I try to do everything intentionally on our packaging. If you look, there's all these squiggles, but if you. If you look at them just right, there's a little hidden smiley face in there. And part of the brand message be, there's always a reason to smile, always a reason to be happy through all the clutter. Whether that translates or not, I don't know. But you know what I'm trying to do.

27:36
Daniel Scharff
I mean, I don't know if I saw the smile, but I do feel like your packaging is very joyful, as I said, so it's felt in some way. And of course, you have a reason to smile when you're eating, you know, delicious frozen yogurt. So who's Madden? But, yeah. So another thing I wanted to get into, and I like to ask this of every founder, for the most part, which is what's been one of the most challenging things while you've been building true joy, and how did you overcome it? Or how are you know, still working to overcome it?

28:05
Charlie Gentry
Yeah, we touched on this a little earlier, but the solo founder is tough. Yeah. One brain plus one brain is more than two brains. So not having someone to bounce every idea off of is tough, but getting out there and finding a buddy who has a natural wine business or, you know, is making up, you know, peanut butter cup, basically, or whatever, and, you know, you all have similar things going on, so collaborate with them and. Yeah, absolutely. That's really all you can do. And people are generous to get it.

28:42
Daniel Scharff
That's so true. And it made me think about another Austin based brand, Wims, who? I don't know if you know those people, they make better for you.

28:49
Charlie Gentry
I talked to Jesse two weeks last week. Yeah.

28:52
Daniel Scharff
Amazing. Well, I actually also interviewed them for the podcast, but I just had the thought. I was like, you guys should collaborate and do a true joy frozen yogurt with, like, their peanut butter cup mixed in.

29:03
Charlie Gentry
That'd be fun. We did a demo side by side at the new royal blue that opened a few weeks ago. And their chocolate sauce. I don't know if you've tried their chocolate syrup yet, but it resolidifies when you put it on top of frozen stuff. Really good. Really good. Yeah.

29:17
Daniel Scharff
That's so fun. Oh, my God. I have to try it.

29:20
Charlie Gentry
Yeah, there.

29:21
Daniel Scharff
That's another amazing Austin based brand. So everybody should, who's in the Texas area should go find whims and true joy at their next dent.

29:29
Charlie Gentry
Yeah, it's fun to make all these brands have similar. Similar brands.

29:32
Daniel Scharff
Yeah, that's so fun. And I think great advice as well, just to say, like, hey, if you're a solo founder, that's really hard. And also go find other people because you will need them, and you really can do it all by yourself.

29:45
Charlie Gentry
You would probably go, no, you really can't.

29:47
Daniel Scharff
Yeah. No. So we touched on this a little bit, but as we're nearing the end, I'd love to hear about what the next year looks like for true joy, 2025, what's coming down the pipeline, and what are your goals for the next year, and then also really the next 510, you know, lifetime of true joy.

30:08
Charlie Gentry
Yeah. So, you know, still have a lot of questions around 2025, and hopefully in the coming months, I have a better feel for what it's going to bring with as category reviews come around. But I'm hoping we continue to fill out Texas with some, you know, there's still some big stores here that we're not in, but then a push to California. We're part of the California milk accelerator program, and so I'm hoping that puts weight in our sales as we try and grow our distribution out there with, hopefully regional. I'm hoping for regional launches with big national chains, but there's also a whole lot of regional grocers out there that I'd like to grow into.

30:48
Daniel Scharff
Yeah, absolutely. Anything.

30:52
Charlie Gentry
Well, then the five year plan. I do want to be a coast to coast brand. We'll see when that happens. I would say I can retire when we're $5 a pint everywhere I really want us to be able to compete on price and be affordable for everything. It's part of the company's mission is to make the world a happier and healthier place by making the healthy choice the easy one. And part of being easy is it's got to be affordable for everyone. So we really want to hopefully, can drive our costs down and realize economies of scale. So that can be a Walmart product.

31:22
Daniel Scharff
Yeah, absolutely. That's such a hard line to balance when you're new and young and, you know, you want to be approachable and accessible, but you have to, obviously.

31:32
Charlie Gentry
And we're competing on price with everyone at the stores we're at, which is super cool. You know, we're sitting next to Jenny's and the same price or cheaper sometimes, which is probably one of the things I'm most proud of, honestly.

31:45
Daniel Scharff
Yeah, absolutely. So, final question. If somebody came to you and was ready to start their own CPG brand in frozen or otherwise, and they said, charlie, what should I do? What's like, what piece of advice do you have for me? What's one thing you would tell a brand new founder who was in your shoes, you know, a few years ago when you started Truejoy? What's one thing you would tell them or one thing you would have wanted to hear from a founder?

32:15
Charlie Gentry
I tell them to go for it. There's gonna be, you're never gonna be ready, and you just gotta go, and you're gonna learn along the way. You're gonna fall, and you're gonna have to get back up, and you better be ready for that, because it's definitely not the easiest path in the world. But if you sit around for years waiting to be ready, you're never ready. So just get.

32:35
Daniel Scharff
Yeah, that's so true. And, you know, you could, as you said, wait around for the rest of your life to be ready.

32:42
Charlie Gentry
Yeah. And you'll never know. You'll never know. We've had a lucky start, but we still had challenges.

32:48
Daniel Scharff
Yeah, absolutely. Well, this was so much fun, Charlie. I hope everybody checks out. Truejoy. And if they want to learn more or follow along on your journey, where can they do that?

32:57
Charlie Gentry
Yeah, absolutely. You can follow us on Instagram. It's just truejoyogart. And our website, it's easytrujoyogurt.com. If you have any questions, reach out to me. It's just charliejoyoger.com dot. I'm happy to help. And then, yeah, you can find our products across Texas and neighboring states at central Market, Whole Foods, Market street, if you're in Austin, weeksville, royal blue fresh, plus tiny grocer now.

33:23
Daniel Scharff
Amazing. Yeah, the list goes on.

33:26
Charlie Gentry
Hopefully it's growing. Yeah, it's actually growing into Oklahoma as we speak with resource.

33:30
Daniel Scharff
Oh my God. Amazing. Well, if you're in Oklahoma, go make sure that they sell out of true joyous. Cool. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show, Charlie. It was a pleasure and thanks, everyone for listening.

33:42
Charlie Gentry
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Grace. Have a great weekend.

33:46
Daniel Scharff
All right, everyone, thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, it would help us out so much if you left a five star review on ratethispodcast.com. Startup CpG I am Grace Kennedy, the host of the founder feature series, so feel free to add me on LinkedIn or reach out to me on Slack. I'm always on the hunt for new and exciting brands to feature. And if you're a potential sponsor who would like to appear on the podcast, please email partnershipsartupcpg.com. And finally, as a reminder for anyone listening, if you haven't already, we would love for you to join our community on Slack. You can sign up via our website, startupcpg.com dot.