This great photo taken by Sydney Bensimon.

Jane Porter, in her July 10 article in Fast Company wrote, “Artisanal ice cream is everywhere, with craft ice cream makers launching food trucks and pop-up shops across the US. Store freezers are giving more shelf space to lesser-known brands that offer unique flavors and quality ingredients over big brand names. According to the National Restaurant Association, home-made artisan ice cream is the top 2015 dessert trend.

Standing out in a market with so many players takes more than just tasty flavors. It also requires smart business strategies and finding a way to differentiate yourself in the marketplace—business lessons any startup founder could use, regardless of their industry.

Fast Company spoke with three craft ice cream makers—Van Leeuwen, MilkMade, and Coolhaus—about what makes them stand out in the marketplace and the lessons they learned that helped them succeed in business.

We have expanded upon Porter’s findings for each company and developed a Check List for our Weekly Blast readers.  Do you like the article and see value in the Check List?  Please forward it to your network using in or t.  Thank you.

Background on the 3 Companies:

Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream:

Company logo copied from the website

Keys to Success:

• Business model:  Focus on a niche market:  Classic and Vegan ice Creams
• Don’t compromise – We have an obsession with quality, we have always pushed the boundaries for our purity level
• Sustaining that balance between quality and flexibility is incredibly important
• Constantly evolving our product and business plans based on what the market wants,
• Sustaining that balance between quality and flexibility is incredibly important
• Cook book

Photo taken by Brendon Walter

Founded:  2008

Founders:  Laura O’Neil, Ben and Pete Van Leeuwen

Markets served:  NY and CA

Market Reach:

• 8 Company stores
• 6 Trucks (4 in NYC and 2 in LA)
• 250 Retail Stores

CoolHaus:

Keys to Success:

• Business model:  Focus on a niche market:  Ice cream sandwiches (“Sammies”),
• Quirky branding (use of relevant/catchy names (e.g., Minimalist, Netflix.)
• Testimonials/Articles written by Good Morning America (GMA), Forbes, Entrepreneur and Vogue (“The best ice cream sandwiches in culinary history”)
• Developed “Berries and Ice Cream – Oatmeal Raisin Cookie” for GMA

Founders:  Satasha Case and Freya Estreeller

Founded:  2009

HQ:  Los Angeles, CA

Market Reach:

• 11 ice cream trucks and carts;
• 2 storefronts (Pasadena, CA and Culver City, CA);
• Sell packaged ice cream to 4,000 stores

MilkMade:

Keys to Success:

• View competitors as collaborators, not competition
• Business Model:  Craft Ice Cream Company offering a subcscription Ice Cream Service (2 pints of ice cream/mo.) _$30/mo. “Free hand delivery”
• Limit size of served market (MilkMade focuses on NYC and NY).
• Appearance on Rachel Ray’s TV Program (video (3′ 35″)
• Great website:  Had 700 people sign up on her email list in the first week
• Multiple flavors (134 introduced since founding)

Founded:  2009

Owner:  Diana Hardeman

Funding:  Raised $300,000 in seed funding plus…

 Value Innovations’ Analysis of “Keys To Success.”

Here’s our list of combined “Keys To Success”

• Business model:  Focus on a niche market:
  • Van Leeuwen: Classic and Vegan ice Creams
  • CoolHaus: Ice cream sandwiches (“Sammies”),
  • MilkMade: Craft Ice Cream Company offering a subscription Ice Cream Service (2 pints of ice cream/mo.) _$30/mo. “Free hand delivery”
• Don’t compromise – We (Van Leeuwen) have an obsession with quality, we have always pushed the boundaries for our purity level
• Sustaining that balance between quality and flexibility is incredibly important
• Constantly evolving our product and business plans based on what the market wants (Van Leeuwen)
  • Multiple flavors (134 introduced since MilkMade founding)
• Limit size of served market
  • Van Leeuwen focused on NY and CA
  • CoolHaus focused on CA
  • MilkMade focused on NYC and NY
• Social Media Strategy
  • Testimonials/Articles written by Good Morning America (GMA), Forbes, Entrepreneur and Vogue (“The best ice cream sandwiches in culinary history”)
  • MilkMade developed “Berries and Ice Cream – Oatmeal Raisin Cookie” for GMA
  • MilkMade appearance on Rachel Ray’s TV Program (video (3′ 35″):  http://www.milkmadeicecream.com/our-story
  • Website:  MilkMade had 700 people sign up for their email list in the first week
• Marketing Tools:
  • Cook book
  • Quirky branding (use of relevant/catchy names (e.g., Minimalist, Netflix
• MilkMade views competitors as collaborators, not competition

We generated a “Check List” for you using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (see table below), so Success Factors are listed in Relative Importance.  The consistency ratio was 9.9%:

We see Social Media Strategy, Business Model, Don’t compromise on quality and Product Line Evolution based on Most Important Customer Input (75.3%) as far more important than Flexibility, Marketing Tools, Competitors as Collaborators and Limit Size of Served Market (24.7%).

Do you agree?  We’d love to hear back from you.

Do you have questions about the Value Innovation Process?

Want to find out how to use it, and how hundreds are bringing order to their Front End?  Large and medium sized companies, startups and not-for-profits have all used the VIP successfully.

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Sources for this Weekly Blast:

Read more about the Jane Porter article in CoExist, Fast Company at

See MilkMade’s appearance on the Rachel Ray show

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