It’s hard to imagine that Natasha Case and Freya Estreller started Coolhaus out of a beat-up postal van. Since its humble beginnings in 2009, the Los Angeles-based ice cream brand has grown into a formidable franchise with a fleet of ice cream trucks, two scoop shops, and premium placement on the shelves of over 7,500 grocery stores from Whole Foods to Safeway.
The women-owned (and women-run) food brand has successfully disrupted the freezer aisle with their “farchitecture” ice cream and the side hustle is paying off—literally. In 2018, Coolhaus had gross revenues of $11 million—raise your hand if that figure inspires you to get started on your own passion project—and has garnered a cult following that includes celebrity fans (Cindy Crawford was once an ambassador for the brand).
Ahead, Case shares how she and her partner built Coolhaus from the ground up, including the moment she knew they had a brilliant business idea on their hands and how they come up with the brand’s most innovative flavors (think street cart churro dough, buttered French toast, and balsamic fig and mascarpone).
CREATE & CULTIVATE: Did you ever dream your brand would reach this level of success and popularity? What has been the greatest memory from this journey so far?
NATASHA CASE: When we started out, we did have a very big idea and a very big vision, but it was relatively abstract and we didn’t have the pieces to put it all together specifically. Now we definitely do, and it’s a matter of execution.
I’m lucky that I have so, so many great memories of running and growing this business, but if I would have to choose it would be an even tie between catering the Obama’s last Fourth of July party at the White House, raising $100k for No Kid Hungry charity by offering up one hour of a ice cream truck catering from one of our Coolhaus trucks, judging Chopped and Top Chef Jr. (the kids were too cute!), and I’ve loved public speaking like our TedX talk and keynoting for Martha Stewart!
The Coolhaus brand has been titled “farchitecture," which is a delicious fusion of food and architecture. How did you come up with this concept? Why do you think this innovation sets you apart from other companies?
I came up with this concept because I was searching for a way to make architecture fun and accessible, and in design school, I discovered food as an incredible way to do that. I fell in love with the way food brings people together, how it creates memories, how we let our guard down and around a great meal... how this form of hospitality, per se, could build a bridge to design. I found a ton of white space around the intersection of food and architecture and knew that these were two passions where I had endless curiosity and even more passion for the combination. I think this innovation sets us apart because firstly, it’s a broader philosophy of how to approach building a culture, defining a brand, and making a product.
For example, everything that we’ve done with Coolhaus is thoughtfully crafted in its design and build, and everything has a deep and authentic aesthetic touch. It speaks to: "What does a brand look like when its founder and CEO is an architect?" Also, because, by definition, we are innovative in merging food and design, this makes the progressive and out-of-the-box thinking infiltrate everything we do whether that’s elevating ice cream and ice cream novelties (sandwich) or who knows soon enough, reinventing a whole new category… it gives us a deep core philosophy that we can scale beyond the typical brand or product.
“When you are a true CEO, you are driving your own dream but you think of the company as a place for all of your employees to accomplish their dreams as well.”
When you hit a bump or hurdle in your career, how do you #FindNewRoads + switch gears to find success?
In order to do this business and to be a successful entrepreneur, you always have to be recognizing new opportunities and new directions for you and your company to evolve. The entrepreneur who is very dialed into this will always push the boundaries and bring the biggest achievements. You have to know that the hurdles are necessary and defined in terms of making the tough decisions that are going to get you ultimately put you above the pack. What is going to define you as an entrepreneur is more the challenges and failures and how you react to them than the wins. The challenges bring out the opportunity to go deeper and reinvent, so I approach them with an open mind and excitement and rather than as "problems."
Growing a company can be tricky when you are used to doing everything yourself and now have to delegate and relinquish control. What is your advice to other entrepreneurs who are feeling these growing pains? What are the three traits you look for when hiring?
The delegation is super exciting because it really allows you to specialize and dig deeper into your passion. Ask yourself what got you here in the first place (sounds like a mushroom trip, I know). The goal is to really spend your day aligning your vision and creativity with your energy on executing that element of the brand. Nobody can be the top-performer in all aspects of the business, and when you grow enough to have an incredible luxury, the gift, to bring other experts to the team—it’s all excitement for me. It’s time for you to learn from them and it’s going to make you so much better at what you do as well.
I personally feel very comfortable with the delegation, and I love to guide my team, but then see what they accomplish and where they can be most creative. I think when you are a true CEO, you are driving your own dream but you think of the company as a place for all of your employees to accomplish their dreams as well and how can you set them up to do that best. Three qualities I look for when hiring are a willingness to collaborate, unique ideas with self-motivation, and ideally, a passion for food or at least consumer products.
We love that Coolhaus embraces being a certified women-owned business. Why is this important to you? What advice would you give a woman at the beginning of her career?
This is important to me on so many levels. One, we have a lot of work to do in terms of building equal opportunity at the top and as creators. So, I believe in leading by example for my generation and the next ones to come. But on another level, it impacts everything we do. For example, how we run our culture: we are not just about a female CEO, but about women leaders throughout the company and embracing gender equality in how we treat each other. And I believe that women thrive in a collaborative environment, are very in touch with emotion and feeling, which is great for the consumer business. I have found many women are very thoughtful and detail-oriented. So that influences how we go about our innovation and product creation.
Also, consumers today look for the story behind a brand, so the women-owned/women-founded and -led gives them a way to understand what we’re about with a simple message. The advice I would give to a woman at the beginning of her career is to think really big and not approach business as something you have to do all on your own.
What's a mistake you made and what did you learn from it? How did you turn it into an opportunity?
A mistake we made was our packaging when we were doing a three-store test with them. We didn’t have the dollars or experience to really create a proper visual that would thrive in a grocery store setting. We were much more used to three-dimensional branding that could happen with our trucks. However, I’m really glad we started small with a three-store test at Whole Foods because it allowed us to build, measure, and learn from that initial prototype and then pivot very quickly to quite a different design that made a lot more sense for what we’re trying to accomplish in the grocery store. It’s so important to just put an idea out there, then be willing to listen to feedback and evolve.
What drives your passion for your product? How do you come up with the innovative flavors?
A huge part of the passion for the product for me is how meaningful it is to bring joy to people's lives. It’s such an incredible, vital element of our existence, and it’s such an honor to play that role in people's lives. Coolhaus is all about joy and joy through indulgence, and I treasure that. I also love running the innovation side of our business because the work is truly "soup to nuts:" from coming up with an idea for a product or flavor, developing it, tasting it (hardest part of the job, of course), and then developing the visual, the story behind it, how we communicate that to a consumer. There are so many layers to it, and I have an endless curiosity for it.
As far as behind the curtain in terms of how we build flavors, I would say it’s a function of right- and left-brain: there’s one side where we look at the data in the marketplace and find opportunities. But there’s another side where we can we lean on instinct and unique thinking. And this is where, as creators, being the literal profile of our consumer comes in handy. I ask myself, "What would I want to see on the shelf? In a truck? A scoop shop?" And that answer usually is a good direction to go in for what we’re going to develop next.
With success comes opportunity but that also means you have your hands full. What keeps you inspired and motivated to keep going even on your most challenging days?
What keeps me inspired even on the toughest days is that I’m so passionate about what I do. There are no problems I would rather solve than Coolhaus' problems (it’s ice cream and cookies after all!). I think that something you really have to ask yourself if you’re going to start a business is: on the darkest days of what’s ahead, is there anywhere else you can imagine spending your days? If no, start that business. Then my other passion, my family. My wife, Freya Estrellet, with whom I also founded the business, is my greatest mentor and partner in all things. Speaking of, our son Remy is an incredible inspiration to me because I know I’m building the Coolhaus empire for him. And we have another one on the way, so it’s for her as well!
What is the #1 book you always recommend? Why?
I read books for pleasure, so 1Q84 or Gone Girl, which you can inhale in one long weekend. For meaningful reads, The New Yorker has phenomenal writing.
Photographer: Jenna Peffley
Hair: Styled by OGXpert & Celebrity Hairstylist Jillian Halouska
VIEW THE FULL CREATE & CULTIVATE 100 FOOD LIST HERE.
