"Dessert" will never be the same

[DrJake]

This is it boys.

I've been a lifter for nearly 2 years of my life. (I started early, thank god, at the ripe age of 14). When my freshman year of high-school started, I had no friends, absolutely no social skills, weighed maybe 100 pounds, and hated everybody. I can honestly say I was such a weirdo because I had been playing video games 8 hours a day since I was 9. I had only quit the addiction half-way through my freshman year, after coming across the Bold-and-Determined blog.

A year and a half later: I have an awesome girlfriend, the respect of many of my peers, an improved physique, intentionally forced myself out of my introverted shell and into the extroverted world, and I refuse to ever waste one more minute of my life on video games. Now on to the thread.

About 1.5 months ago, sometime in July or maybe June, I had just finished a killer workout and was blending the daily protein shake. However, due to my clumsiness, I had poured a little too much frozen fruit into the mix. So when the shake was finished, it was more like an "ice cream" than a protein shake. (Needless to say it was the worst-tasting ice-cream ever.)

Then it hit me: protein ice cream! I figured that there had to be a recipe online for making some good tasting ice-cream with whey protein. After all, they're both dairy products. After some time searching, I found nothing. This got me fired up and I decided to wing it. I went through a typical vanilla ice-cream recipe, and just added some of Walmarts whey protein into the mix. (This is seriously a bad idea.) It tasted awful. However, this motivated me even more because I knew that the more difficult this was, the bigger the opportunity!

I worked from that day and every day after to formulate my recipe. I can't tell you the recipe for obvious reasons, but just know that implementing whey protein in ice-cream is NOT easy. I also read the Lean Startup and recently began crafting my business model. The ultimate goal is for my physical product to:

• Taste like classic, unhealthy ice-cream
• Have a dense amount of protein
• Have reduced sugar/fats

After a month of rigorous testing, experiments, talking to dairy experts, and punching a hole in my door, I finally got a recipe right. It acted as an "MVP" because it tasted okay, was vanilla flavored, was legal, and had plenty of protein. I tested it on friends and family members (Which I know is usually a bad idea) but at the time they were my only lead to starting my build-measure-learn feedback loop.

Throughout the month and a half I've been working on this, I've learned so many valuable lessons that will help me become the successful entrepreneur I want to be in the future.



Am I afraid someone on here is going to steal my idea? Yes, but I know that the person who is likely to steal my idea is also LEAST LIKELY to successfully execute it. If you plan on stealing my idea, go ahead, but refer to this quote:

"Work like there is someone working twenty-four hours a day to take it all away from you." - Mark Cuban

 

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[DrJake]

I'm still in this guys. I've been bogged down ALOT with school and work, but I've cut down my work hours quite a bit since this week, so I should have more time to visit the forum.

I've sold quite a few more ice-creams at my school. I have a couple repeat customers, which proves the stuff tastes great now, and there really is a demand for this stuff.

I've got pretty good packaging now, with commercial-tier sticker printers and great labels.

I'm pretty familiar with a lot of FDA regs and have real-world experience with my job. I'm going to have a great looking flyer finished this week and I'm going to launch my first local marketing campaign. Wish me luck guys! Any tips?

 

[DrJake]

Going with "Redefine". Landed my first local sales today. Sold for a whopping $7 a pint. Now to see if I have any return customers. People are definitely interested in this one way or the other, haha. Some people absolutely REFUSE to believe that you can possibly mix protein and ice-cream together. It's amazing how people think.

Anyway, need to improve the smell and general taste properties. Also consistency. It tastes great now, just not like classic vanilla. I'll probably start using legit Madagascan vanilla pods instead of gallons of vanilla extract. Duh.

Also need some new labels to print out that don't get soaked away on the packaging from the ice-cream condensation. Apparently paper isn't the best idea.

 

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[Jakeeck]

Hey man. What you do is basically what I'm trying to achieve, except with a few issues and changes.

The final products will probably be sugar-free.

I also have to pasteurize, or heat up to kill bacteria, the whey protein while it is in the ice-cream mix, according to the law, before I can sell it to anybody. This seems easy enough, but heat treatment denatures and aggregates whey proteins, which makes the finished ice-cream sandy, and less tasteful. This is a fixable problem, but the different methods and complex processes make it a little complicated. This is what I'm talking to dairy experts to fix right now, and it is my number one problem at the moment.

Also, since my target market is mainly fitness enthusiasts, I will be targeting high-dollar gyms to retail my product. This makes for an easy, almost "naughty" protein snack right after a workout.

I'm not sure if the gym thing is such a good idea. When people are leaving the gym they grab a smoothie or something because it's easy to drink on the way home. Nobody is going to want to have to spoon ice cream while driving home, and I can't see many people just sitting at the gym eating ice cream.

 

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[AubreyJ]

This is actually a really good idea- I lift and workout a lot and I never drink protein shakes because I absolutely hate the taste of protein powder, so I have always opted to eat protein dense foods after a workout as apposed to a shake. If you could get the texture/flavor of real ice cream (or even something remotely similar) I think you'd have a really great product- I'd be a customer

 

[DrJake]

You know, this all proves that innovation doesn't have to come from thin air, and it's often the problems that everyone figures are unfixable that have the most opportunity. Ice cream is the go-to unhealthy food. Everyone knows it's unhealthy. Why do they think so? All the sugar? Fats? Because mommy and daddy said so? Who cares, the point is disruptive innovation often happens where you would least expect it. Everyone these days wants to start the next social network that will be bought by facebook for billions(I have a friend working on that right now) or the next Victor Pryde blog, or the next amazon, but really, what are you disrupting? What innovation are you really bringing into the market with crap that everyone else already does? Either do it first, do it better, or don't do it at all.

 

[InLikeFlint]

Hmm, this is a valuable perspective. Maybe it would be smart to target the mainstream ice-cream market AND fitness market? I know exactly what you mean though, I always down my protein shakes when they taste bad, and continue to down the same nasty protein the next day. I generally don't really care about the taste, just the health benefits. With this in mind I think it would be a good idea to target the healthy food markets/supermarkets before I meet the fitness community head-on in supplement stores and gyms, which was my original plan. When people walk into a supplement store they usually aren't thinking "I want a healthy snack that tastes awesome.", they're usually thinking "I want X and Z supplement because J person on this blog/forum/list said so."
This changes my perspective from bringing icecream to the healthy world, to bringing the healthy world to icecream. Most healthy people opt out of eating ice-cream most of the time. On the rare occasion they decide to indulge, wouldn't they be exited to have an option with high-protein?
It would be awesome to hear peoples opinions and insights on this! Which channels does everyone think would be a good starting point for this product?

I think targeting the healthy crowd first and then working your way up to the fitness group would be a great approach. Health foods and the accompanying grocery stores are thriving right now, and people trying to be healthy (whether they do it right or not) will try to make any unhealthy option healthy (ice cream with fruit on top, frozen yogurt over ice cream, custard over ice cream, dark chocolate, low sodium, fat free, sugar free, the list goes on) and by offering protein in a way that they can indulge too will attract a lot of people. While it might not be for the right reasons, healthy junkies (or as I call them, bandwagons) will jump all over this.

I like how you took my advice well and didn't feel threatened. You agreed my points were valid and found a solution that incorporated the ideas I brought to the table. This alone is a business skill that many many people lack and I truly commend you for having this skill already and by actively using it. Regardless of the market you end up choosing, I feel you are well ahead of the game with your mindset and approach and I expect you will do well!

Cheers!
Sam

 

[Guest24480]

Someone mentioned earlier that no one will want to eat ice cream after a workout in their car on the way home. Personally, I don't drink my protein shake on the way home from the the gym, I wait until I am home. So for some people I don't think that would be an issue.

Also, I think your product would appeal to the people who go to the gym at night, as it is a dessert. Just a thought.

 

[RealOG]

Three things you should consider:

• Fitness fanatics' palates are incredibly forgiving. Just because the average person thinks it taste like gasoline, doesn't mean it won't appeal to the fitness community.
• Protein shakes aren't just for post workout. Many active bodybuilders supplement two or three times a day. We are always looking for a new delivery system.
• Right before bed, slow absorbing protein is a great supplement. This times perfecting with a dessert style protein supplement. Casein has a slow absorption rate and is among the cheapest proteins on the market, while still having a relatively high bio-value.

 

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[DrJake]

8/18/14

My entire view on entrepreneurship has changed in these last two months. When I first came up with my protein ice-cream idea, I immediately began dreaming of all the money I could make. I could already see the lambo, the mansion, and the pool. I "knew" my idea was an instant winner. I read a few of MJs threads on value and decided "Yup, it's a high-value idea. Next!" I swept that under the rug as if it were just one step in the entrepreneurial journey.

Boy was I wrong. Value isn't one step of the journey, it IS the journey. The sad thing is that I constantly see newer (and older) entrepreneurs go on with their endlessly regurgitated fitness blogging, (No hate on bloggers), their how-to books they completely copied from these blogs, and their hustle for "passive income from home!", and going on with this crap and seeing no results. The simple matter-of-fact truth is, they're not bringing anything new to the table! There's no value! These are the kinds of businesses you can start from a 7-step guide on any finance blog in the world! You'd be better of financially taking a job at McDonalds than starting another "alpha dog fitness" blog. (Not saying it's impossible, there's always new stuff to teach through blogs ) The point is, and this is what I've learned, the REAL success comes from genuinely trying to improve the world in a new and positive way.

Money isn't the only thing that motivates me to continue this project anymore.

I SINCERELY believe that a natural, high-protein ice-cream can help people. Help people lose weight. Help people build muscle. Help people eat healthier foods. Help people eat dessert without destroying their body. Help null the obesity epidemic. Help people help themselves.

Everything I do in my new business is in favor of these values. I know that what I'm working on can do all of these things and more, and helping people, is what value, to me, truly is.

 

[Dark Water]

Finally got some good freezing properties on this. The protein used to absorb all the flavors and the ice-cream got rock-hard after being in the freezer for a while. Took a bit but that's fixed and I'm finished with all of the technical crap now.

At this point the ice-cream has a normal amount of sugar, low fat, and of course high protein. It tastes good and has awesome ice-cream texture. Now the goal is to sell, sell and sell, and of COURSE to optimize the ice-cream as I do so, so it's healthy and natural.

One of my teachers wants to try a sample next week. Imma bring a big batch, cause another teacher hinted me that teachers often talk together about these kinds of things with each other, and if she shares it with others that means more feedback.

I've been pretty into lifting since I was your age (14) and I'm 22 now. Played varsity, college sports, etc. and the gym is a huge part of my life.

I see sugar as a worst enemy than fat. Unless its saturated fat. Then we have two equal enemies.

What problems do you encounter by making this a low sugar product? There's plenty of no sugar added ice creams out there already, made by famous companies like Edy's.

And you must think, you are not only competing against other ice cream products, you are competing against all protein/post workout products. I've been following a strict regimen myself for some years now and your product sounds like a Weight Watchers ice cream pop. Sure, it may be better than the real thing for these people who are addicted to sweets/cravings, but as someone who can avoid that stuff altogether, its not something I want.

A dedicated athlete is not going to turn to protein ice cream regularly when there are better alternatives out there.

My protein with a cup of milk doesn't taste bad. It actually tastes really good. And there is less than a gram of sugar, almost no fat, especially if I use skim milk. With that said, why would I switch to ice cream? I won't, so to me this is more of a "oh that's cool" kind of item that I would try if a friend had it, not something I'd regularly buy. That means life time value of this type of customer won't be too high. Which means more $$$ towards getting new customers.

You will be competing for customers against giants like Weight Watchers, who may not have protein ice cream, but still have substitutes for unhealthy snacks with loyal customer bases.

With that said, I think your progress is great, and the fact that you're getting it into the real world and having people try it is even better. Its something I'd love to try once, and perhaps from there, I could be convinced.

Lastly, do not pull a veil over your own eyes by only testing it on your local school, friends, and listening to encouragement on this board. Set up some Facebook ads, try to reach people you don't know, get some presales, offer to send a sample for an honest review to some magazines, people, etc. Get a real outsiders view of what you're making.

 

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[Silverhawk851]

"Work like there is someone working twenty-four hours a day to take it all away from you." - Mark Cuban

The value here is not in the idea, but in the attitude behind it. This quote signifies that Good on you, keep the hustle up.
You can have anything your willing work for.

 

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[CommonCents]

You have a good story for local news media. Young entrepreneur with interesting new product.

 

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[DrJake]

8/12/14 Today I was just informed that the college football team in my town wants to try my ice-cream. This is a real shocker because I hadn't said anything to them and they came to me. I know I'm gonna take advantage of this, but I'm not sure on the plan. I haven't had a lot of time to prepare. Right now I'm going to work on figuring this out. Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[brandonrush]

Sounds interesting! I'll be watching this thread in hopes of updates.

 

[Jakeeck]

Sounds fun.

Dessert is spelled with 2 s's, though. Living in Arizona, the word desert enticed me to click this thread.

 

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[NoLackey]

I had thought about this myself, but not something I wanted to pursue.

A lot of people in the online fitness community already make their own protein frozen yogurt - calling it Frotein or FroPro. It's decent to get your protein intake, but a lot of fitness people will say stuff is amazing, because they know they shouldn't eat the real thing. lol. I've made it and it's okay, so if you can get a product that has a more traditional ice cream taste or texture, you're set.

I think it might be beneficial for you to study Quest products. Everyone knows and loves their protein bars, but they also make other products like pasta and more recently protein chips. I never hear anyone talking about the pasta and the protein chips didn't go over all that well when released recently; some didn't like the taste, most didn't like that their minds were thinking potato chip and apparently they don't give you the same experience when you bite in to them.

 

[throttleforward]

I just went to a protein-based restaurant in DC (http://www.theproteinbar.com/), and they have no dessert!

 

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[Solrac]

I think this is great and all and I don't ever see anything like this in stores.
But I usually just take vanilla ice cream and mix in vanilla whey, or choc with choc whey.
I mean if you can come out with a product better than that solution for me I'm all in.

 

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[DrJake]

I think this is great and all and I don't ever see anything like this in stores.
But I usually just take vanilla ice cream and mix in vanilla whey, or choc with choc whey.
I mean if you can come out with a product better than that solution for me I'm all in.

Hey man. What you do is basically what I'm trying to achieve, except with a few issues and changes.

The final products will probably be sugar-free.

I also have to pasteurize, or heat up to kill bacteria, the whey protein while it is in the ice-cream mix, according to the law, before I can sell it to anybody. This seems easy enough, but heat treatment denatures and aggregates whey proteins, which makes the finished ice-cream sandy, and less tasteful. This is a fixable problem, but the different methods and complex processes make it a little complicated. This is what I'm talking to dairy experts to fix right now, and it is my number one problem at the moment.

Also, since my target market is mainly fitness enthusiasts, I will be targeting high-dollar gyms to retail my product. This makes for an easy, almost "naughty" protein snack right after a workout.

 

[Solrac]

Hey man. What you do is basically what I'm trying to achieve, except with a few issues and changes.

The final products will probably be sugar-free.

I also have to pasteurize, or heat up to kill bacteria, the whey protein while it is in the ice-cream mix, according to the law, before I can sell it to anybody. This seems easy enough, but heat treatment denatures and aggregates whey proteins, which makes the finished ice-cream sandy, and less tasteful. This is a fixable problem, but the different methods and complex processes make it a little complicated. This is what I'm talking to dairy experts to fix right now, and it is my number one problem at the moment.

Also, since my target market is mainly fitness enthusiasts, I will be targeting high-dollar gyms to retail my product. This makes for an easy, almost "naughty" protein snack right after a workout.

Hey I like the idea! I am very down to give it a try when possible. I would love Ice Cream protein, the shake gets boring every now and then and I drink one daily. Shoot me a PM when you have it ready to rumble!

 

[brandonrush]

@DrJake have you considered frozen yogurt instead of icecream? You might be able to supply the base vanilla or chocolate yogurt to all of the yogurt shops that are popping up. They can put it right on the side of the 1 or 2 "sugar-free" options they usually have.

 

[cautiouscapy]

http://www.wheyhey.co.uk/

Always assumed these people were US based, but apparently not.

I can't really mail you some ;-)

I've tried the chocolate, it's OK if you accept it won't taste like ice-cream. The vanilla gets baaaad reviews on the supermarket I buy from's website.
Not sure if this link will work in the US http://tinyurl.com/msjw8wt

 

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[Alveko]

I've taken a glimpse at google and came across a couple of europe based businesses on google selling protein ice cream.
Check out 'Fitfuel', 'Proteinfirst' and 'Wheyhey'.
Seems a bit strange to me there would be no similar offers in the US.

 

[Geeko]

Alot of yogurt companies label there yougurt as: greek style yogurt. The key is on the style part. I dont know what is the requirement to be greek yogurt but these companies have found an easy way around it. These greek style yogurts often have higher calories and poor amount of protein (some have 0).

Typically i just make a thick smoothie with whey and plain greek yogurt then freeze it to make a sort of ice creamy, smoothie. I think you should advertise this as a convience. Same way whey is a convience over regular healthy high protein food.

Sent from my SGH-S730M using Tapatalk

 

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[chrischapman]

Congratulations. You have a good idea.

This is a perfect example of how execution is everything.

The only things I see as potential obstacles to getting in the fastlane in the CENTS:

scale - how are you going to market & distribute this produce on a massive scale?
time - it seems like a typical business where there are a lot of demands on the owners time and may be difficult to automate, perhaps lots of reliance on human resource systems as the business grows.

Of course, these are not obstacles if you find the solution. They aren't extremely difficult to overcome as long as you plan the business around these principles from the start.

Is there a need - I agree, absolutely. I love ice cream and would enjoy protein in it.
Entry commandment - yes, coming up with this product is difficult and is a classic trailblazing innovative path.
control - it's your business, of course you control it. just make sure your suppliers don't control you.

I think that you can make this work on a grand scale. You'll figure it out.

Also, boldanddetermined.com is indeed wonderful. im glad to hear how Victor has changed your life and attitude too.

 

[chrischapman]

Being only 15, I have a ton of work ahead of me,

well yeah, i think at any age you have a lot of work ahead. but damn, good age to start haha.

i think with good marketing, you have proven scale isn't SUCH an issue. think national though.

also, fyi i would be a customer, if I were in the US of A. if you could put some ice cream on a boat to Australia, that would be cool, but oh well, us Australians never get the best of international produce and always pay higher prices anyway

 

[chrischapman]

I remember somewhere a statistic that Australians eat a load of ice-cream

hahahaha bloody australians....

yeah bro, aussies are loaded
with money (average full time wage is about $75k a year) and are super into their food. result: an obesity rate approaching the american level and a huge appetite for ice cream. lot's of people into their fitness though fortunately - not as many as the fat ppl though lol.

i think you would do well here. australia is a great test market as well, very business friendly environment. we love americans subconciously too, since all the good tv shows people love are american.

also australia is terribly uncompetitive imo and stuff is already VERY expensive here.

but yeah, focus on the US first and then come over. i hope you kill it bro.

 

[Couttsy]

Great Idea, I'd aim for the supplement stores / supermarkets.
When you get the perfect formula be sure to send some over to Australia for us.

 

[InLikeFlint]

Cool concept!

However, as a gym enthusiast and 6-day/week lifter I probably wouldn't use this. I'm taking a protein shake (along with all the other supplements I take) for the health benefits - I want the extra protein to build muscle and the amino acids to help provide energy to my repairing muscles; allowing them to grow. I understand that the taste is not going to be great because it is a health supplement, and I have accepted that full on. It fits in well with my dieting (6 clean days per week, 1 cheat day) because I am resisting my urges for sweets and unhealthy food everyday and then allowing myself to enjoy it on the 7th day. It builds self control and it is slowly allowing me to cut unhealthy foods out of my life entirely. I feel even if you make it sugar free it is still going to have the fat of ice cream, which to bodybuilders is almost worst than the sugar. Not to mention, there are some good tasting proteins out there (Syntha6 & Carnivore are my favorites) and mixing them with milk and powdered peanut butter is great. I take them in water with powdered peanut butter and they taste fine to me. Even a fruit smoothie with protein added in is very doable. In the long run, I think the people that take protein shakes regularly do it to be healthy and just down it quick if they don't love the taste. If someone wants great taste they can grab a quest/zone/clif builders bar, which still has ~20g of protein and generally less than 1g of sugar (and all the aforementioned bars taste phenomenal).

Just my two cents!

 

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