Two millennial women just won $100,000 to scale their vegan ice cream business. Here's how they perfected their 'scoopable' banana-based recipe and landed their pints on Whole Foods shelves.
- Stacy's Rise Project awarded $100,000 in funding to Hannah Hong, cofounder of Hakuna Brands.
- Hong and her cofounder Mollie Cha became lactose intolerant in their early 20s and out of their love for indulgent desserts, launched Hakuna Brands to make oat-milk and banana-based ice cream.
- Hakuna's leadership is entirely women and three of the four used to be coworkers at Bolthouse Farms.
- Hong talked to Business Insider about building a team she loves and how she's overcome imposter syndrome.
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When Hannah Hong and Mollie Cha started their "nice-cream" business, they knew they were taking their friendship to higher stakes.
They were already maids of honor at each other's weddings and now they were about to be business partners. In 2016, the University of California, Berkeley, grads quit their jobs and went all-in on dairy-free ice cream to launch Hakuna Brands.
"We both agreed that the minute our business gets in the way of our friendship and there's any sort of resentment or any negative feeling where we feel like we can't be on this with each other, the business is over," Hong said.
She and Cha have disagreements and different points of view, but Hong said they always come to an understanding. "It's just like a marriage, you know, you can fight but you can still be married," Hong said.
Now, the pair has an exciting new opportunity to agree upon: how to invest $100,000 for their business.
On November 4, Padma Lakshmi, host of "Top Chef," awarded Hakuna Brands the grand prize for Stacy's Rise Project, a funding and mentorship program designed to help close the funding gap for women business owners.
Hakuna sells vegan ice cream made with oat milk and bananas, making a beloved dessert easier on lactose-intolerant stomachs - and a lighter option for any ice cream lover. The brand is capitalizing on major food trends like the paleo diet and the recent explosion of oat milk.
Hakuna's banana ice creams come in six flavors and three frozen bars, including cashew cookie dough, banilla, and strawberry. The oat-milk based ice creams, which launched in early 2019, come in peanut butter, vanilla, and chocolate.
Business Insider spoke with Hong after her win. She was proud to be wearing a pink, banana-covered t-shirt as she posed for press photos with Lakshmi and a giant check. "I know it's not the coolest thing to wear in front of Padma, but I'm not giving up the opportunity to wear my branded t-shirt in this photo," said Hong.
She'll do whatever it takes to advance her business. "This is my first born, this is my baby, and there is nothing I won't do for it," Hong said.
Hakuna Brands is based in Los Angeles and led by four women - three of whom were former colleagues at Bolthouse Farms, a producer of green smoothies and carrot juice. Hong and Cha were best friends in undergrad and later worked together at Bolthouse in strategy and innovation, developing new product ideas.
They both became lactose intolerant in their early 20s and launched their banana-based ice-cream brand out of their love for indulgent desserts. Hong left her job at Bolthouse at the beginning of 2016 and Cha left hers about a month before they established the company on Halloween of 2016.
Nailing down the recipe and finding a factory
It took a while for Hong and Cha to perfect their first recipe, which was inspired by paleo "nice-creams" that use frozen bananas instead of dairy. "You can't just put that in a pint and then sell it. It literally turns into a block of banana ice," Hong said.
The women tested several iterations in their home kitchens until they found the right, "scoopable" texture. Learning how to make the ice cream was one of their biggest obstacles, since it uses ingredients most dairy-based manufacturers aren't as familiar with. "Most ice cream that's sold commercially, it's made one way and all factories are built to make it that way," Hong said.
They moved their operations to a small, commercial kitchen and sold their pints (which were labeless deli containers at first) from a freezer in a van they named "Fran," driving down the southern California coast from Thousand Oaks to San Diego several times a week.
But eventually, they needed to scale. Their next major obstacle was finding a factory that could replicate their recipe - they tried three facilities before landing the right one. "Moving from our tiny hundred-foot square kitchen to a factory was one of the hardest things I've ever done," Hong said.
The trial-runs required a lot of money, Hong said, which included paying for ingredients and the time spent on the manufacturing line. Each batch had to freeze for 24 hours before they could taste it, so they could see how the ice cream hardened.
"We had to go through so much to even figure out how to build a frozen business," Hong said.
Best friends and business partners
Both Hong and Cha come from families who started their own businesses, so they learned second-hand that it can be difficult to run a business with friends or family.
The founders are best friends first and foremost. Before making their business official and signing the LLC papers, they talked about their priorities for both the business and their relationship.
In 2018, they added to their full-time team. Grace Robbin became director of product development, and Margie Clark became director of sales and marketing. Hong worked with Clark for four years when they were at Bolthouse.
Hong said she's learned how important is it to choose her team wisely, especially as a small business. "One person can have a huge impact on your company, and so picking that person has to be done very thoughtfully," said Hong.
Getting over imposter syndrome
At one point during the factory-trial process, Hong said she felt imposter syndrome setting in. The factories were primarily owned and operated by men, and Hong said that intimidated her. She knew how her recipe was supposed to turn out, but the manufactured product wasn't right. "I knew it was different. It wasn't just in my head," Hong said.
After three factories didn't work out, she realized she needed to be more confident in her product. When the next factory told her "this is just how your ice cream is," she overnight-shipped a pint from Hakuna's kitchen. Once the factory workers tasted it, she said they realized it was different. "I think that really helped me build my confidence," Hong said.
In January 2017, Hakuna started selling in grocery stores - its first retailer was an independent grocer in Los Angeles. Today, the brand is sold in 430 California locations, including Whole Foods and Sprouts Farmers Market.
Hakuna was bootstrapped until January 2019, when it held a friends and family funding round. Now with its funding from Stacy's, Hong said the brand plans to boost in-store efforts to gain new customers, buy social media ads, and expand production to a factory on the East Coast.