 We can joke all we want or I can make funny jokes on Instagram But at the end of the day if my ice cream sucks, it doesn't work So I tell everyone know what if it's ice cream of photography Just double triple down on it be so good at what you do and focus on that one thing that people can't deny it Steve Martin has a quote. We have a quote of it on our truck It says be so good They can't ignore you and I tell people that all the time your podcast anything just focus go all in on that one thing and focus on that and people will I mean I know it sounds cheesy if you build it. They will come. Maybe they won't come but I genuinely believe if you focus on that thing the social media and the press will follow This is start up to storefront the podcast where we inspire entrepreneurship through truth Today's guest is Joe Nietzsche founder of CVT soft serve Like a lot of east coasters who move out west Joe found himself in Los Angeles searching for comfort food to remind him of where he came from The problem was that Joe's comfort food was soft serve ice cream and la really didn't offer that particular food group Sure, there were ice cream parlors and frozen yogurt shops, but none of those really hit the spot for Joe So he did what any self-enterprising person would do He created his own soft serve company Well, first he had to find an old mr. Softy ice cream truck fix it up Ship it to la get all the permits yada yada yada, but we'll cover all of that later in the episode Joe's story is a perfect example of how a great product paired with an electric personality can catapult a company to uncharted heights So listen in as we cover everything from why the customer is not always right The trials and errors of finding the best spots to park your ice cream truck and why there should be ice cream served in every gym If you're not subscribed Can you go ahead and do that right now before we get on with the video helps us out tremendously? That's all we ask and we're back All right, welcome to the podcast everyone on today's show. We have Joe from CVT soft serve Joe Thanks for coming on for everybody listening. Tell us a little bit about what you do I am the owner and operator of CVT soft serve We are a soft serve business here in Los Angeles. We opened about seven years ago. Almost can't believe that and Yeah, I won't to my own horn too much, but we won best food truck la by eater la la magazine We've got a lot of great press and I think great ice cream Yeah, and just so people listening to you guys have some pretty unbelievable trucks I don't know how you describe them for me. They're kind of like this vintage ghost buster Meets ups truck that just happens to serve some pretty delicious soft serve, which it's like a 90s thing I feel like I feel like people like kids of today don't get soft serve anymore But I don't know if I'm totally off point. You're not off point. No the trucks themselves are from the 1960s They're mr. Softy trucks from new york. They were originally soft serve trucks ones in 1960. That was a 61 But soft serve in general in la was not a big thing. I moved out here To la in the late 90s and people who are from la I'd ask, you know, where do you get soft serve ice cream? And they didn't even know what that was. They thought it was frozen yogurt. I was like, this is crazy. There's no good soft So I jokingly say we opened out of frustration, but we legitimately opened out of frustration for not having the good products That's such an interesting dichotomy there. So Diego and I are also from the east coast Why is soft serve a coastal thing? Like why is there an east coast west coast? Like one has one has nothing You know, how did that originate? Do you know the history? I don't know though. I don't know the origin of it, but I can tell you that la has frozen yogurt central and if you want to say la's health conscious would be the amount of green juice places in town You could go there But I feel like when it kind of came to la it was like, oh, we want ice cream But let's go really healthy and the irony of it is if you go to like pink barrier in these places You watch people get yogurt and then they just dump gummy bears and or you put all sorts of crap all over it Like that's not healthy guilty Guilty baby. Yeah, just lure lure me in with the health con like even the just the facade like call it vegan Glory, which is a restaurant here and I'll just get all the fried stuff. I'll just eat everything fried But hey it's plants or so they tell me I wanted to have you on for so many reasons one for people listening Please go check out their instagram your instagram is unbelievable. Yep. You follow one person, uh, his holiness Michael Tyson of all people Mike Tyson is an avid fan of your soft serve. How the hell did that relationship develop? I don't know. Um, I met a lot of really strange interesting characters here in la and early on because I didn't know the I guess the proper word would be etiquette of instagram and social media in general And I would have people like, hey, will you follow me back? And I was like what I literally just use this to post where we're going to be and post funny stuff I'm not following anyone. It's like I guess I'll just follow Mike Tyson So I did it and then it became this like conversation piece where people are like, why do you only follow Mike Tyson? I'm like, it's the greatest boxer of all time. Why not? Why not? So yeah, but he's gone to visit you. He looks like he's visited you a few times Oddly enough, no joke tonight. My employee told me that the producer for his podcast hot box and They stopped by the truck tonight. So yeah, I mean I told him I said let me know I'll cater So I might be driving down to the podcast in a couple weeks to cater for Tyson. That'll be pretty cool That is pretty cool. Every time I watch his podcast I'm like this guy's on the verge of murdering the person he's talking to and and also having a deep thought At the same time and I don't know like I'm just like man, he's a tiger inside like you can tell he's ready Yeah, I think that's the beauty. Yeah, you're just terrified. You're on edge Yeah, like I want to I want to meet him one day and just say, hey, you know You had a couple of easy fights and then just run away Joe, I want to circle back real quick before we get on to your trucks, you know We are no stranger to having vehicles with personality on this show. We've had the mischimobile for I love micheladas We've had sunny for farm kept coffee and with you you have charlie and frankie Correct So it's impressive that you were able to source one. Mr. Softy truck, but Two, I mean, I I don't even know how many are in existence in america today But it just seems so incredible that that you were able to find two of them Like what was that search like for you and and how difficult and how long it was? The first one took years. I knew exactly what I wanted I wanted a vintage mr. Softy truck and to find it was just like I was on craigslist For every city. It was like you can't there's no maybe there is now but at the time There wasn't a craigslist craigslist database for every city So I would click on texas and then austin san antonio I go to california san francisco and I just searched like crazy and it finally popped up And I bought it site unseen off the internet. It's a stupid move. That's that's literally in a whole separate pocket But I bought the truck had it restored and then I was working the streets and every time I got a private event We had to cancel on all of my regulars like what the hell when do I get how do I I mean How do we eat your stuff? It was like clearly there's a demand for the product We need a second truck So we started searching again on craigslist and no joke It was like out of a movie barn doors open and this guy had four of them So I said I'll buy them off and he's like what what do you want to do for I'm like I'll buy all of them They don't run. I'm like it's fine. I'll take them So now I've stockpiled them because I was telling Diego I would love to have a stand-alone truck that doesn't move just like a permanently parked truck Kind of like what's going on farm cup coffee with sunny Yeah, it was it was just sheer luck to find the other they're basically shells Did you find them in LA or did you have to ship them over? No upstate new york was the second Yep, so they're up there except for one of them. We shipped out and that's frankie I literally shipped the box out. I was just obsessed without aesthetic I wanted that classic look but everything had to be gutted mechanically to I mean everything had to be redone I can imagine after I who knows how long they hadn't been in operation And you know vehicles that are made from that day aren't exactly in the best shape nowadays even if they were running So I can imagine like that was a hefty task for that restoration Yeah, and especially with the first one. I hadn't sold a single ice cream cone in LA First of all, so there was no soft serve So I'm going to dice on I'm going to spend all this money on this cool looking truck And then bring the product that doesn't exist here because I think it's good It was looking back now. It's nuts You were probably the coolest dad though like cool dad points for sure right at a minimum You're rich in cool dad points. I would imagine I explain that to my kids I say you guys, you know, this isn't like normal Like you we have ice cream trucks like that's we went put in to go He's like, yeah, we'll go like we go to the truck. I'm like sure like this is not a normal thing like your friends Yeah, so they're aware that that's a treat when you retrofitted the truck I know farm cup had this issue where basically like these cars are somewhat you like super unique And so there's a limited number of mechanics one and then two at least in farms cups case when they retrofitted it The weight was just too much and so they had this issue of constant breakdowns And then going to this mechanic who there is only one of in LA And so what is is that? I mean obviously with a coffee. I would imagine with that vehicle There maybe it's a little different than your vehicle your vehicle looks a little bit bulky But what have been the challenges on that side of it? Oh, so I guess for farm cup That's a french truck that they have so there's a really hard thing to find mine are four engines in them So anyone that works on classic cars can work on them That's not the issue but the jet the weight of them alone. They're solid steel from the 60s They're not fiberglass. They're heavy 10,000 pound trucks They're slow going some of the limitations to the business. We don't go on the freeways They max out about 40 miles an hour So if I'm in the valley and I'm doing a catering for a tv show in Santa Monica I'm taking this the public pass over it takes us a while to get around but it's worth it. I think I mean I just didn't want a modern truck because I think it would just look like everyone else's and didn't really have the eye catching appeal Yeah, no, I love it and tell everybody I know you do a lot more than just soft serve So you have some drinks that you guys make and some yeah, yeah So tell everyone a little about the menu. We have a menu as big as the cheesecake factory. It's humongous We have three flavors chocolate of vanilla or twist which technically two flavors We have just a couple toppings sprinkles and sea salt and then we do some drinks We do a coffee cream, which is an iced coffee Which we use stumped on coffee and ice creams that ice and then we do Mexican coke floats And then we do orange crush floats too. So yeah, it's uh, I love it What is your favorite? Do you have a favorite item? Come on It's good. I do like the sea salt. I twist the sea salt. Yeah, I've never had that. That's interesting I've never even heard of it. It's really good. It's really good What are like the dumbest questions you've got when people approach a truck? Are they like, oh, is it vegan? Or was it what kind what's the nut milk? Like what do you get in LA because it's such a just a position I've had I was catering a Porsche dealership from Woodland Hills And I had a woman ask me is the salt salty and to this day That is like my top question that was like, are you kidding me? No I would say once a week my employee and I we get frustrated because if you look at the menu and it says chocolate vanilla and twist As the three choices we still get every single week. What's a twist? And I was like, could you sort of figure it out based on what else is on the menu contextual clues? Yeah, exactly. So Do you just make stuff up? You're like, you know what? It's whatever you want it to be today. There's just a random factory back there And when you hit the twist button, you don't know what's gonna come out, but I think it's gonna be good for you Yeah, we had a one person come by and say can I get some strawberry and I said, oh, we don't have strawberry And she goes, oh, no, I was here last weekend I had it and I was the other guy and I was the only employee at the time. I'm like, no, that didn't happen So that's hilarious just working with the public in general and that's kind of Or how Taylor my social media my instagram sort of towards that a little bit just kind of like the customer is always right Is just like the craziest thing to me because it's not true and I do it in a playful way I think it can be a little aggressive at times, but I think it's kind of fun It's funny how when people ask me like I was telling people I was talking to you and they're like, you know What do they what do you say? Right? So how do you describe Joe? And I was like, he's got this great He's just the wit and the banter but pushes just enough and he'll wear like he's got a t-shirt That says stop standing up when the plane lands and it's just it's just so good like it's like, you know Your personality is so what I love in general with business and entrepreneurship is when It's very clear that the person's personality Right the human is putting their expression of self into their product And there's a real honesty to that and that connects like that is and it's immediate like people know right away And so when I see like you on your instagram doing that and you're wearing your hilarious stuff And I just I'm like this is great like it's because it's honest, you know It's it's honest and I think it's important that people do that. Thank you. Yeah I think authenticity is key to any small business not just food But yeah, I think people are they're attracted to that and it's kind of a breath of fresh air If I would say 99 of ice cream business probably take Beautifully lit photos of the ice cream and I'm like, I don't want to do that I'd rather just like post funny stories about moron customers. I think that's funny So that's what I do Not to not to you know to go back on something that happened to all of us. So covid hits You have this amazing cove not covet, but you have this amazing business And I imagine everything gets shut down and like what has this been like for you and your business during this time Yeah, it was tough. I mean ice cream. We can still sell we were technically mobile So we never actually had to shut down completely But you know people being scared the biggest hit that we took as a business was catering The bulk of our business was tv film catering weddings big events I mean, we were doing them two or three a week. It was that was our and the street truck was basically like a business for the weekends But when that stopped we had to go back to both trucks on the streets full time And then we started doing merch. We sell lots of shirts and stuff like that. So we made it work So I read an article that during the worst of times like during the great depression The most successful businesses that didn't affect at all the economy and the economy went to shit What do you think the best the most likely business most likely business to succeed is I would have said alcohol for sure That's what I would have thought and alcohol came in at number two and ice cream came in at number three And number one was gentlemen's clubs And I was like wait, whoa So no matter what when people were starving and during the great depression They still reached into their pocket to go to a strip club to buy alcohol and to eat ice cream to feel good I jokingly put this on my instagram I said someone should start a strip club ice cream parlor and call it lickety splits And we can make a fortune. We would literally just dominate those three things. Uh Someone should take that anyone. Wow. You mentioned you wanted a permanent location for one of your other trucks There you have it What could be more perfect? Exactly. How did we get on that subject? I don't know. I love that COVID and recession. Oh, yes. So yes. Yeah, basically ice cream has still I mean a lot of comfort food in general has survived I know people that own pizzerias that are doing better numbers during coven than they did before So I mean comfort food is came right now and pizza ice cream alcohol Did you have to make any odd like modifications to the truck because I know like we had to or at least with farmcub as a retro fitting Everything is at least the health department is big on making sure there's plexiglass Everywhere and like the ADA now has a microphone and I think the you know The microphone or at least the speaking thing is a Is a newer thing that i'm even seeing just some takeout businesses do So basically they're not yelling like someone's they're not like joe your order is ready Instead of yelling it they just have the little microphone thing, which is a new thing. It's brand new. It's kind of odd But yeah, the plexi thing was weird to me. They you have a very small window Especially with pass-through for dairy for whatever reason It's really I mean, I'm like what this it's nuts. I have four sinks on my truck I do no prep whatsoever. We literally are pouring ice cream mix into a soft serve machine But I had to have four sinks way to knock out the back wall. It was just a total It was crazy took almost two years to get the health department to approve everything And then the second truck was like nothing because we already had the plans But yeah, it's there's a lot of red tape and when I first went to the health department with the truck They're like, well, why don't you just get a new truck? Like this is crazy This thing has to be redone That that seems to reason The the people who would work for the health department are the same people with the lack of vision to see why You would want a truck from the 1960s As as dear dear health department. We love you health department. You're our best friends We can't do anything without you. I just want to make sure the health department understands how much we care We covered our bases. Okay. You know, I will say on the farm cup project. They were very quick They were like three weeks turnaround. That was it. It was pretty unbelievable during covet. I thought it was just Literally crazy. I mean so that is we got lucky But a bunch of weird stuff came out like the intercom thing and like ADA access has changed a little bit too or before you kind of get away with you know Kind of ADA ish and now it's like they want the same experience and so they're taking it to a level of I know you and I talked about this in austin Austin, Texas It was like a big thing where all these food trucks come together and you have this big event and it's pretty amazing And the 80 the problem was for the most part these trucks don't have ADA access And most of the serving counters or ordering counters at like 40 42 inches high Which is like 10 inches higher than ever required. Yeah, and they don't have a ramp And even if they do have a ramp, they just end up building like these two plywood You know, it looks like a little kid's like BMX Of like ramp that doesn't really work. And so they're starting to crack down on it But yeah, we had to make a few oddball modifications But other than that it was good and then obviously when you take out the generator which weighs like a tremendous amount The truck went up, you know, so it like lifts like four inches. And so that was interesting too The generators like 800 pounds ours is yeah, I don't know. We have a huge generator because it's also it's crazy Joe, I want to go back to that So you mentioned a little bit ago that it took two years to get the health department to approve your plans So you mentioned that before you bought the first truck Charlie you hadn't even sold a single ice cream cone And so then from that point, it still took two years before you were able to sell anything Is that what i'm hearing? That's correct And that was because I didn't know I bought the truck in texas Off prex list and then I thought to myself, which was the worst move ever Why don't I have it retrofitted in texas to save money? It's already there So I got the plans and sent them to the builder the builder messed it up had it shipped to la They looked it all over i'd have it rebuilt a second time in la they're making me sweat just thinking about this story It was uh, not a fun time But yeah, just they wanted to see the truck They're like they couldn't even compare it to another truck because they haven't seen a truck like it before It was a huge challenge and there were all these things. I was like, well, I didn't even know what that means like coved walls What what what is that? so It was weird So take us back to that moment of when you were finally able to sell ice cream I can imagine a mix of emotions one of which being thank god We're finally able to to operate but like, you know, how how long until you felt that you were Had your footing and established That's a great question. Um a while because I was terrified. I had this feeling of oh my god I put all my money and time and effort into this thing and now I can do it now what day one Where do I go? I don't know. I don't I've never sold ice cream in la before I have ideas So my first day in business I went to pinks hot dogs. I was like that's where i'm gonna go I'm gonna park outside pinks people love hot dogs and they don't have dessert there This is going to be great and I shoot you not every single person walked out of pinks hot dogs holding their stomach saying Oh, that looks great. I'm just so full. I'm so full. I was like, well, this is stupid But luckily on day one Courtney Cox comes to the truck has an ice cream and tweets about it And we had a line in westwood that night because of that tweet. So I'm like, oh, well, celebrity endorsements are huge I guess I should play into that So I sort of went that route a little bit and I realized that people genuinely use social media I know the movie chef they totally like glorify it but in it truly you guys know, but it works to no end So I took advantage of that and I was confident. I know it sounds a little bit cocky I was so confident in the product that I knew if I could get you to try it You come back But it was just getting people to know about us and to come to the truck for the first time That was the challenge But to get my footing maybe Actually, this is weird. We had a viral news story with bill murray Three months into business And then from that moment on I mean we were in that was a national news story So from that moment on People knew who we were and we won best food truck la from la weekly So I was about three to four months Which is unheard of to my friends that are in the business Yeah, you had you had some amazing early customers and early You know backers of the truck. Yeah, absolutely We were living in Sherman Elks at the time and a location scout came to my house asking if they could film at our house And my wife and I I'd worked in the business. I was like, no I've seen them literally destroy hardwood floors drilling into sea stands and like we're not doing it So I come home from work and she goes. Oh this location scout came by to film They went and you know, I said no and I was like, what was it for? Which like some bill Murray movie. He's like my I'm like, wait, what what'd you say? So I said, no, I'm like, you said no to bill Murray. Are you out of your mind? So long story short, I'm like, this guy's my idol I have an ice cream truck. My neighbor said yes to the location scout I'm gonna throw an ice cream party for bill Murray So I called it the bill Murray ice cream social and I parked outside the set And I gave everyone for your ice cream hoping he would actually show up He shows up. He comes on the truck. We take photos. I'm like, this is awesome I posted to my Instagram the next day my friend Chris calls me. He's like, Joe, you know bill Murray's stories are huge on reddit I had no clue what reddit was He posts it you're never gonna believe it came to my friend's ice cream truck He called me Chris is like a soft spoken guy. He calls me like a stockbroker screaming. He's like, Joe You are the number one post on reddit. And I was like, what what does that mean? He's like, this is the most searched image on the internet right now I was like, get out of here and then instantly Rolling stone today show Vanity fair I got emails. I'm like, what is happening? And everyone wanted to hear the story like tell us about bill Murray because he does all these crazy things We want to hear what happened And I told the story and I just asked them that they use cvt software of los angeles and their articles And I mean it was nuts. We were headlines Right after that. So bill Murray joke. No joke bill Murray helped my business take off 100% That's a cool story Incredible and I'm just thinking you know of that moment. I mean some people Will never get bill Murray to come on their ice cream truck or their their store or whatever But you set yourself up for it like Those those people who who won't have bill Murray grace their business They might also be the people who can't see the opportunity That you did where your neighbor had said yes to the Filming location and so you were like well If we can't be the the location that bill Murray is going to film at I'm going to be the next best thing And I'm going to park my truck right outside And it's it's like catching flies with honey Sure, and not only that a couple things He didn't have to show up. He could have been like who's this crazy weirdo with an ice cream truck I'm not going to do it like there's a lot of things that just happened to work out that night It was insane and then even for like I now know how red it works It didn't have to get voted up. It just got voted up. They just clicked on it. This is cool. Oh, this is cool And that could have totally just died out I'm sure there's crazy stories on reddit that no one ever sees because people just don't vote it There was a lot a lot with it for sure the game stop of ice cream Yeah, exactly. This is it. Yeah, you know again if you could give like entrepreneurs advice around your journey and You know, I think a lot of it like whenever I talk to my friends and whatever they ask like interesting questions I'll just say, you know, I'm a tropical flower I say that like I'm a tropical flower and I just happen to bloom In places kind of like LA right like yeah, I'm a warm weather guy The energy of people chasing their dreams whatever their dreams may be whether it's entrepreneurship or acting or music Or just expression of self I think LA, you know, no matter what people say about it is still cheap enough to figure it out And interesting enough for people to make it and that energy is something that you know, my tropical flowerness really needs to To go and in that I can meet people like you and together You know the expression sort of just takes on the momentum where all of a sudden it leads to bigger opportunities or bigger things When people ask you even like what do you what would you say like your your tips for entrepreneurship might be like What do you what do you tell them at least in in relation to your story? In relation to my story like we can joke all we want or I can make funny Jokes on instagram, but at the end of the day if my ice cream sucks it doesn't work So I tell everyone know what if it's ice cream of photography Just double triple down on it be so good at what you do and focus on that one thing That people can't deny it Steve martin has a quote. We have a quote of it on our truck It says be so good. They can't ignore you and I I tell people that all the time Your podcast anything just focus go all in on that one thing and focus on that And people will I mean I know it sounds cheesy if you build it. They will come. Maybe they won't come but I I genuinely believe if you focus on that thing, that's what I tell people all the time Don't worry about your instagram follower account Don't worry about any of that crap like just focus on being the best wedding dj You can be because then people are gonna be like all this wedding dj was awesome You have to hire and then yes the social media and the press will follow I think that's so true. I can I can speak to some of it at least I was in tech formerly and in tech There's this weird thing where you know, everyone for the most parts in their early 20s mid 20s And we're just so focused on giving the world an appearance that we're bigger than what we are Like we're so focused on and and the term for this is called growth hacking, right? It's like this rule term that we've developed and it's like, oh, who's the who's the latest growth hacker? And what's your hack and blah blah blah and the problem with it is I just feel like it's like we're not talking about what we do We're just talking about the people that we know at Forbes that can write articles about our funding And there's a huge disconnect between this and I you know, I personally I think I was like 28 when I realized this and I was like, oh, we've to your point We've been chasing the wrong thing like we should just be making our product so exceptional But instead we're spending a lot of our energy Which is finite and a lot of our time which is finite on things that Are like almost like peacocking like we just want to be like the pretty girl in the room and that and that's I get that but it's really short-sighted And uh, you know, at least I learned that when I was in tech Yeah, that's that's the whole influencer culture in general and like trying to do this thing and like, okay But what do you do? Like what is that you have a high follow count? Which we now know you can buy which is all it's all bullshit But I was getting frustrated early on it. We were just we were doing this fake fame There's a thing on hbo mask called fake fame the documentary and we're doing a fake fame Special the truck is a joke, but I was just on krock had us on for an interview and I told him this story Early on I had a line at this burbank event down the street We were slammed it's probably like six months in this kid loved my ice creams like 20 years old and he said This is so good. I can't believe you only have 5 000 followers And I was like, I have a line down the street. What does it matter? Why are we focusing on that? And my neighboring truck at the food truck event had close to 50 000 followers and he had no line I'm like, it's all smoke and mirrors like at the end of the day if the product is good That's it focus on the product whether it's food or a service you name it that just focus on that This is so true. This this reminds me of so there's a place called bootleg pizza. They have a food truck also And They got like a snub like they weren't in the top 10 pizza food trucks and nick actually I had this pizza with nick and I think it's like the best ever like literally and so I literally wrote into the eater Like the writer of eater and I know a few of them and I was like I cannot believe that you didn't mention bootleg pizza And it's it's and you know to your point I'm just a fan of the product and I'm a nobody right like it's like I'm just a fan writing into an editor Because that's the product is that good and I felt I took it personally that they weren't mentioned And going back to that like smoke and mirror culture. I don't think there's anything better And I tell people to sell their entrepreneurs all the time There's nothing better to me than word of mouth advertising and I don't believe You guys can roll your eyes at me all you want If kim Kardashian comes to my truck and takes a photo and it goes crazy People are going to hit the like button, but I don't know that all those people are going to come to my truck I genuinely believe that if Your friend tells you you got to try this ice cream. You're more likely to go and try it But when that's not for ice cream for anything I think word of mouth personally word of mouth not instagram word of mouth is The top I mean I'm kind of contradicting myself with the whole bill Murray story because that brought people to the truck But at the end of the but I genuinely believe word of mouth advertising There's nothing better. Well, I think there's a fine line to this and and a nuance as well because it's not as if Everyone who's a fan of bill Murray Saw that went to your truck and bought some ice cream But crap who are a fan of bill Murray now knew about your truck And I'd like to think that some of them went to your truck Went and got some ice cream loved it and then told their friends. So it was a catalyst And there's a there's a clear difference between Say an instagram influencer with with no real passionate fan base versus a bill Murray who's an american icon And I think that's that's kind of where I you know, you said you were contradicting yourself I think it's it's selling yourself short. I think you you understand the line between Someone who can genuinely like you're a fan of and whose support can genuinely help your business like Courtney cox tweeting out It's the port of of CVT on your very first day versus someone who just Just wants free ice cream and that happens a lot feel important And that difference is hugely hugely important and a grand canyon apart from each other Joe, how much is an ice cream? How much is your soft serve? What do you sell it for the twist? Four american dollars. Wow four dollars and they want it for free Not only do they want it for free because they're a healthcare hero. They're like a hero No, the most common request we get for freebies are Influencers or people like we were doing a party and there's going to be these influencers there They're going to take photos at your truck or I get I'm not going to name names. I'm sorry guys But I have actors and actresses who there are people say hey Such and such is willing to take some photos of the truck in exchange for your services And I'm like you are out of your mind. I say I joke. I'm like my kids school They the tuition payment they don't take celebrity photos. They actually take money So I I need I need currency to pay for my kids so they can go to school But you would be shocked at some of the very successful people in hollywood Maybe you wouldn't be shocked but they've asked for freebies and it's because they're promising exposure And I'm like you are out of your mind and we have this other viral story where I took on influencers just as a joke it went like global and I got more exposure for mocking the very people that were promising me exposure. It was it was absurd Can we can we talk about that a little bit so you had a sign this has influencers paid double Perfect. I had a party request for 300 people. I mean, I've been getting free requests forever And I just tell them to get the hell out of here But I had one for 300 people to like this tiktok type house to come out and do this party for free And they'll get all this exposure and I was like I am so over this I made a sign as a joke That said influencers paid double and I put it in my window as a joke I took a selfie with it saying we have a new policy now This guy his name's rick. He's been verbank. He's a follower of ours He did exactly what my friend christen with bill marie. He posted it to reddit But it went globally viral. We were on in the the bbc. I was in time magazine I was on the today show in australia for this little sign I clearly struck A nerve with small business owners around the world saying this is so absolutely ridiculous And influencers paid double went viral. It was like a trending hashtag And I thought this happened 2019 in july it was like fourth of july weekend what happened I was like, well, it's just gonna go away and it just kept going And it was in a news cycle for about two weeks And then any time influencers are mentioned or any anti-influencer backlash we get mentioned So it's now going on two years of people like, oh, that's the truck thing But again, not my intention. I did it as a joke as kind of a screw you I don't want to deal with your crap And it I love it worked out on a bit of a like kind of a serious note that we we tell Or I tell like on a lot of our projects We might have an investor group and typically if there's an investor in a project They'll think like, oh, I'm gonna get free beer or free coffee or free blah blah And so I always tell the investors. I'm like You are investing in the livelihood of them If you want free beer, you are killing them So your job is this and I and I usually tell the businesses offline I'm like you're gonna charge them double Because they are literally tied like literally tied to your success And and you have to change the mindset You really do because this notion of like, oh, investors should just get a You know a steal because they wrote a big check is really dumb It's like you're you're thinking about this totally illogically, you know, and yeah Give it some time even with a startup like give it some time I comp my friends or try to and I started in all my most of not all but most of my friends are just like You were out of your mind. They were paying me double. Anyway, they want me to succeed Um, I I read something I don't know where I saw that they said people should throw business showers Like they throw baby showers like Elon Musk. Yeah. Yeah. Let's just give these people All the support possible to let them grow then when they're seven years in Then you can give them some free ice cream because they use support them. You you help them grow There is a downside to that when all your friends start businesses are like, hey dig I remember that time you said you guys only a business show Yeah, and I'm like, how much is your product? They're like, oh, it's 200 bucks. I'm like, oh 200 bucks or seven of you Okay. All right guys. This is a nice day. Okay. I'll eat. I'll eat my dog food I'm a fan. I'm a fan. I just love the honesty of that and I think that's what people connect with You know of everything that you're saying and everything that you're doing And that's really important that you're not afraid to to share your personality Within your product. I think that's pretty badass. Thank you. I saw another it was like a Ted talk or something. I think it was uh, mark cuban. I don't know I think it was mark cuban He said if everyone's doing this he put his hand up in the air He goes do this and he put his other hand down to the ground like so when I think of like instagram and businesses I just think of these beautifully lit photos of product like just total Stage people laughing while they're holding their green juice. I'm like, this is so stupid Like so I'm gonna I'm gonna take the most realistic photos possible and like just talk about real things and I think it was a breath of fresh air for people I had a call recently with a founder and I was like, why did you start your company? And she said so she started a Skin care not skin care sunscreen company And she herself had gotten skin cancer on her face because of because of like the sun exposure And in her trying to figure this out. She realized like spf 30 spf 50 has like the same ingredients And she's like literally Diego go to like the next next time you see spf 30 50 flip them over You'll see no there's no difference actually in ingredients And I was like that's shocking and interesting So then I went to her I went to her instagram And I was like this story is deeply personal to you like you're not you're solving your problem It just happens to be sunscreen and and you know sun sun protection And I go to her instagram and it's all like beautiful photos That's all it is And I'm like, where is your story in this like where is you in all of this, you know, and I think I know a lot of entrepreneurs. They're a little nervous because they don't want to like They don't want to push people or they don't want to seem a I don't know like so in your face about stuff But I think you have to I think you got to commit I dealt with that a lot in november with the election and I was very vocal about how I felt About our now president who is a diehard ice cream lover if you've ever googled Joe Biden I was like we have the same name He loves ice cream a lot of people as l is a very liberal town I'm just gonna go for it and the harvard business interview wrote a whole thing about how you know You should lean into your politics and it used to be a faux pas like, you know You don't talk about your politics in your business. You don't mix the two and I we've made an orange crush Float based on donald trump losing like that was his he's the orange man We made this orange and people loved it and even people that were like we're trumpers like this is funny I'm gonna come out anyway because this guy's got a good sense of humor about it So and I know especially for a new business like a new bi like oh, I can't talk about Joe Biden and Donald trump We're just starting. I want to alienate half my business, but I don't experience that Yeah, no, I love that even as a podcast, you know, it's like tough sometimes we'll have people on and you know They'll start leaning one way or another and for us It's like I'm happy to give my opinion for sure and I don't mind the judgment at all But sometimes you're very cognizant of it no matter what you're very cognizant of Yep, right. Say that say that in that same article They went to george washington university and they're in the food court and these are all very Liberal people that go to george washington university And they had three places Two of them had no line and the third one had a line around the corner and it's chick-fil-lip It's like this company used to be anti I mean, they're very religious company. They donated money that was like anti gay marriage like And these are liberal people like so what we're we're just gonna so here's chick-fil-lip saying, you know what? We are proudly donating to this we're closed on Sundays because we believe in this and people still show up because Their chickens were ridiculously good so They focused on the product and they're like we're gonna talk about whatever we want to talk about That's a great example for people because you're so right. It's like so obliviously religious I think they were not even given birth control to their employees as a benefit Like they specifically cited religious reasons to do that I'm convinced chick-fil-lip is like the best private equity Play ever. I just think it's like, hey guys, we're opening sunday. Like they just start hurting and they're like New rule we're open sundays and then the business just booms. It's like a another billion In-and-out burger has a bible verse on every piece of their packaging They also if you google it when it is a trump's reelection campaign I've never seen an in-and-out burger in los angeles without a huge line at their drive-through And la is a very liberal city people will turn a blind eye to the fact that they're super religious Because they love the burgers Yeah, my pillow guy though didn't focus on this product enough Again, I think there's it comes down to there being a fine line between Just having your beliefs and then going too far Yeah, and I do say I said this to a customer the other day and I said it to you guys earlier And it sounds I'm glad we're doing this on videos. They seem like this arrogant asshole Like if they might still think that by the way, they might At least they're not they're not reading it in an article. They can see my face. Um If if I thought my ice cream was subpar or what just sucked I would never talk the way I talk on instagram I'm so confident in how good our product is that I'm like fine. Go get soft serve somewhere else And then we'll talk. I know people that are trumpers that hate my instagram and they still buy my ice cream There's a writer. I forget his name. His name is oren something but he talks about this where You know, he talks about he's just like know your worth and just commit to your product, right? And just get really good at it and then people are like, so what's the tactic you took to raise your prices? And he's like, it's not a tactic. It's not a tactic in any capacity It's just me knowing i'm the best photographer or whatever it is Like he's like the best negotiator the best deal closer the best ice cream maker, whatever it is Knowing your value and demanding that the market knows it too. That's it. It's not a tactic I'm demanding four dollars I'm demanding Do you raise prices every year like a quarter? Like how do you do do people give you nickels? Do they give you dimes? How what is it? You accept credit cards? We were lower when we started and my dairy raises prices Believe it or not the gas that goes in our truck goes up inflation is a real thing So I just tell people like if I can keep this affordable. I'm gonna keep it affordable But like at some point I do have to go up a little bit and we have since we opened Do you give your kids an allowance? That's four dollars a week I should know it's funny Our oldest son, he's not almost 10 years old He really wants to work for the business and I'm like you're nine. No So we gave him a job. He now does inventory for the business So like every thursday before I place my orders for sprinkles or cones or whatever he Now has he has a whole like binder. He's very seriously and he does he he gets paid now Under the table. I don't know if I should get the IRS listening to podcast. Sorry. We'll bleep that out Okay. Yep. So yeah, it's paid in sprinkles Yes, but I told him I was actually gonna do this the next couple days. I'm like, this is a very serious job We're gonna post a picture of you doing your inventory on instagram and I'm gonna let everyone know If they show up to the truck and there aren't sprinkles or spoons. It's your fault So just this is a lot of pressure on your shoulders. So he's like, I can handle it. I can handle it That's awesome. I love it teaching him accountability at a very young age Absolutely One of the things that's like super hot right now in the city of west hollywood anyways the city of west hollywood for whatever reason has decided to preemptively raise the minimum wage to 18 dollars an hour Which is the highest in the country and it's not la the little four mile square square mile area of west hollywood and Obviously west hollywood has like the sunset strip And so there's a tremendous number of hotels and restaurants that are all fighting this presently and the thought process is that the union is going to be like Yeah, you're right. Maybe 18 is too high. Let's agree to 16 which would still be the highest in the country The consumer is just going to be like these prices. I gotta buy 30 dollars for a cheeseburger Like, you know, I mean like the inflation it's just going to trickle down to the consumer and they're going to be ridiculous But like I'm all for a living wage I don't know why they're addressing this during the worst possible time for the hospitality industry Like don't get very strange. Yeah, and all the business owners are saying like, hey By the way, I've made less money than all of my employees who I've kept on on staff They're during this entire pandemic and like no one's trying to help me and I'm not the best You know, I think there's this weird thing in in today's world where it's The society hates the CEO but the CEO looks like you or can and the CEO can look like the guy at best buy And these are way too different CEOs, you know what I mean? Like I think it's just important that we start Realizing for an area to be as vibrant as west hollywood even sure minnows You have a lot of mom and pop shops You have just a lot of people putting their their soul Into their businesses and they're not they're not the CEOs of Chick-fil-A You know and we need to treat them differently and it's just it's so crazy What's happening right now? There's a stigma for business owners of being that oh, they're being greedy that they don't want to They don't want to do the fifteen sixteen dollar minimum Like it's not that we're going to have to raise our prices so much And then you're going to complain and say that's ridiculous I'm not going to pay that much for ice cream I'm not paying that much for this thing like Well, how am I supposed to pay my staff? Gas prices went up my dairy on my ice cream everything else is going up I have to have a family to support too So it's going to be an interesting thing I don't know how gradually they're going to go up in in wage, but It's just a horrible. I mean the Restaurant business is hemorrhaging. It's like the worst possible time ever to do something like this I'm very pro small business on our social media, too I'm like I tell people like if you don't support these people now They will not be able to afford to come back And then like we're going to have Taco Bell as the main choice for food because they're going to make it. They'll be fine That's exactly that's no, but that's what's happening So I think that that's whenever I talk to these people I always just say look you're just making America corporate really because the only people that have the balance sheet to sustain A pandemic and to keep moving forward without ppp loans are effectively the corporations that are massive And so you're just going to have a block full of every single big name Like you might as well just put coca-cola on the street at this point because no one else is going to be able to survive And it's like they get it, but they think I'm exaggerating the issue. I'm like you y'all don't understand math like this is not Difficult they're being super dramatic. They think I'm being dramatic I'm like, I know a lot of people that work remotely and think this pandemic has not affected them at all They still get their paycheck every two weeks. Like they're doing all their work in their sweatpants their house But like there are people like myself or in the hospitality industry They have to go to work and they have to be out there and It's a crazy time. If you don't have the support their people aren't going to bounce back from this I don't want to sound like it's too depressing, but it's true So no it is true I mean and pre-pandemic, you know what we looked at and real estate development We work closely with our tenants and I was looking at the the numbers on the restaurant industry and I was Like oh, wow the minimum wage has been killing restaurants for years years and Unfortunate restaurants who are in certain communities. Let's say they have to keep their prices low to get the foot traffic And so it puts these restaurants in a bind and it and it Most of them don't make it because it just yeah, it doesn't work You have to hire and then it's just not it's not even a restaurant staff which is full of turnover, right? It's like you have that you have your training you got your valet staff if you have that kind of restaurant Yeah, it's just uh, it's just a mess. Let's talk about your future. What do you know? You're coming out of that pandemic sounds like everything's good. Everything feels I feel the fuzzies and talking to you, you know, what are some growth plans for you more trucks What would you think so we a couple of years ago? We we launched this thing called CV teeny where we're branding soft service pre machines to look like our trucks We come on we vinyl wrap them to look like the trucks and we start whole yeah We start wholesaling our mix and I want Find specific restaurants and bars that we felt like we're in alignment with our product And we started doing that but of course with the pandemic I mean we have a we have a machine on the Queen Mary the ship, but that had to shut down because of COVID we have one at Alfred coffee But a lot of these places they dialed back their menus because of it But the goal for us because I guess we have more trucks, but they're very limited in how far they can go based on the limitations mechanically The goal for us is to kind of make it turn it into a bit of a wholesale business where people can have CVT Anywhere it's our proprietary mix. We just need you to have a soft serve machine and give us a little branding How big is the soft serve machine? Like what are the dimensions of this? So there's this really great burger place in Silver Lake called burgers never say die. They have one on a countertop Um, okay. Yeah, they have a countertop version And then they have a standalone version that you'd see like um on McDonald's or whatever And it plugs in how long does the mix last like or how often? Yeah, like how fast you have to go through the mix? The shelf life is two weeks refrigerated, but it ships frozen and it's a year So you can keep in your freezer for a year, but once you pull it out to thought you have two weeks to sell it There's very little waste it's just finding the right people and them wanting a machine and If it's been a bit of a challenge, but I feel like it's kind of a follow the leader type business model We'll see. I the goal for me would be to get on a chain Like I know we've been talking with a few people. I don't want to jinx it But like they're thinking about putting it in their menu and they have like 70 stores. So equinox gyms. Obviously. There you go. Yeah My dad has had this idea forever. He thinks that you know, you're coming out of a workout You're feeling great and you want to reward yourself So ice cream is the natural reward that you you think of I have to tell you one of my best spots on the streets Is mendicino farms. I told you about pink's hot dogs earlier people go in there and they have a salad or a sandwich And they're feeling good. I'm like, oh, I'm gonna treat myself because I just ate a healthy lunch Yeah, it's our best spot. We're there like four days a week The the mental gymnastics there. It's a real market. I've seen this live Like when someone like walked a couple blocks with me and they're like, I'm gonna treat myself I feel good and I'm gonna order the fries and I'm like, wow. That's a negative. Okay. I kind of Selfishly I would love one of these things in our podcast studio. I think that'd be epic Yeah, we can talk about that later. That's amazing We got close with a g we're talking to them about putting them at either stub hub center or a staple center for a while But they call that a partner. We had a very clever way of saying it But basically you you pay for that them to have your product there. It's basically all So but Budweiser when they sell Budweiser at Dodger stadium, it's a Sponsorship partnership. That's what they call it. So you had to pay an absurd fee to them To then let them sell your products and then they keep off profit So that's why and it's kind of a frustrating thing They say they want local at these stadiums. I'm like if you want local, there should be an in and out burger and a pink Hot dog in the staple center, but there's not and there's reason that it's McDonald's Is because they want you to pay to then have the privilege to let them sell your product I can almost understand it up to a certain point Like I can understand if you if you had to pay to get into the space But then to not be able to keep your profit is absurd. Yeah, it's it's basically a billboard I know people like oh my god. That's crazy. I'm like, yeah If you are paying for them to sell your product and the the prices are ridiculous, you know, right? retail price for a beer at a at a dodger game Yeah, crazy nine bucks. So wait, how does the machine work? So does the machine take money? Or like, how does it know or is there someone operating it? Oh, there's someone operating? Yeah, it's like a software machine. Yeah, so we have them at Profeta, which is a coffee shop in Westwood. We have one at this brewery This one of our best CVP customers is a McLeod brewery in Van Isle I'm glad you brought this up. I saw this on your Instagram and got very excited They do Guinness and stout floats and they sell a lot of them, but also McLeod is a Yeah, McLeod is a tasting room. So they're all ages. So they have families that go in there and like, oh Well, that's gonna have a beer. I'll get an ice cream for the kids So Diego and I are big fans of McLeods because I actually live only a couple blocks away from McLeod So I go there quite often and when I saw that you had put a CVT mini in McLeods I'm I made a mental note that I'm going there this week to try it out No, we love that place. That's great. That's a really good idea. So we're building a brewery So this is another one of these this would be ideal because the whole brewery we're building right now pre-COVID the concept was make all the space outside because there's no like place There's no brewery in LA that you can like drink outside which is shocking And so that literally most of the brewery we're building is outside And so this would be perfect for the the kids or just the adults like me Well, listen, it's getting late. I know you got to go back to the kids But uh, just tell everyone where they can find you and all that good stuff Yeah, our website is cbtsoftserve.com and we're on instagram facebook and twitter at cbtsoftserve And if you want to physically find one of our trucks our first post of every day as our times and locations I love it. Thanks so much for coming on the podcast. Yeah, I really appreciate this Joe. Thank you guys