 The second I tried it, I knew this was what I was going to be committing to, and it's interesting because like, you know, when you think of a popsicle, right, you're quitting five years of investment banking, like grinding to sell a popsicle. Like, there were a lot of people, a lot of colleagues, my parents, I love them, they always like supported me. Even my dad was like, you're quitting banking to sell ice cream pops. That's wild. What'd you tell them though? What'd you tell them in that moment? I said, trust me, you gotta believe, like I can see it. This is Starved to Storefront, the podcast where we inspire entrepreneurship through truth. Today's guest is David Greenfeld, founder of the plant-based popsicle company, DreamPops. David is a student of successful entrepreneurs and takes a very academic approach to growing as an individual as well as a business owner. For instance, when he was just starting out his professional journey, he figured it would be a good idea to have a grasp of finance so he went into investment banking. And concurrently with banking, he was on the lookout for markets with untapped potential. He eventually found one in popsicles, but to say the rest's history would be to ignore the persistence and clever series of pivots along the way that led him to create a national brand. So listen and discover everything from why there are no overnight success stories in business, why DreamPops will not be the brand that relies heavily on celebrity partnerships, and why entrepreneurship is a sport. Now, back to the episode. All right, welcome to the podcast on today's show. We're talking to DG, founder of DreamPops. Thanks for joining us. Guys, thanks for having me. This place is unreal. I'm excited to be here. I appreciate you being here. Tell us a little bit about what is DreamPops for people who don't know. Yeah, we are reimagining ice cream and confectionery products for the next generation. Usually less than eight ingredients. We use coconut milk and coconut cream as our base and sweetened with coconut sugar. No gums, no stabilizers, no artificial ingredients. What made you want to start the company? I have the biggest sweet tooth on the planet. So some of my fondest memories are Dippin' Dots, Dunkaroos, you name it, but I've always gravitated and have really just really great memories with sweets. And I think naturally being an ex-finance guy, I want to do something I was a little more passionate about. So I thought we could make some better, cleaner treats, sweets, and desserts for the world. Why not? When did you leave? When did you decide that you wanted to start the company? I was lucky. I interned for a guy named Jesse Itzler who had a company that's called 100 Mile Group when I was in the early 2010s. And I spent a couple summers just shadowing him and seeing how he operated. And what he was doing was using Facebook and Twitter and social media the day to build better for you CPG brands. And I saw him do that with Zico Coconut Water and Health Warrior and other brands. And it was really intriguing because he was using technology to tell the world about cleaner alternatives to Gatorade. Zico Coconut Water, great beverage or Health Warrior and alternative to most protein bars. And he could reach millions of people through an iPhone or through any social media. And that eventually was successful and he ended up with the team selling Zico to Coca-Cola. And I thought, wow, what an incredible way to make a living if I could ever just build food and beverage companies. And you have the net net of making everyone healthier, innovating in an industry and simultaneously you can do well financially. It seemed like a great way to do something to do professionally. But when you saw him, so 2010 Facebook at that time, you could literally target and add to anyone. I could target and add to you. It was an amazing time. I had a company at that time and it was incredible. I could be like, oh, Coca-Cola drinker. Right? And so to me, the ROI of the Facebook ad was unbelievable, like something we had never seen before. Totally. When you were thinking about when you met him and you were thinking about starting a company, were you thinking of the marketing side of it? Or were you like, I have a sweet tooth, I need to solve this problem. What was like, where did your mind go? I wish I could say it was that formal. It was more so I was just getting exposure to things that I loved. And understanding I needed specific skill sets if I really wanted to make them happen. I wasn't then thinking I want to start a dessert company or an ice cream brand or whatever it might be. It was more so, wow, they're innovating across all these food and beverage categories using social media. Okay, that's data point one. Then I knew, okay, like it requires millions of dollars or a ton of capital because you're manufacturing food that's consumed every day. So next step for me was go and work in investment banking. And I actually worked at an investment bank for four and a half years saving money, learning how to model businesses, how to raise capital, how to actually operate them profitably, how to raise capital. And then I saw I was lucky to run M&A processes so I'd understand how successful companies were built. And so then eventually I realized I did not want to be in finance for the long run and I wasn't really passionate about it, but it was a great tool and skill set. And so came across the product and decided to take my savings and go all in and battle myself. What was your first product? What was the first thing you... It was a dream pop. It was a berry dream pop. That was the first product that we went to market with. Any milks or no? No, so all coconut milk, coconut milk or coconut milk based. Okay. Yeah. And then you told your friends about it. They tried it. Yeah, so I was still working. I actually did two and a half years with the firm with the investment bank in L.A. And then I moved to Italy. I was in Milan for two years. With them they had acquired a European investment bank. And I lived out there and was going to food and beverage trade shows. One of my favorite entrepreneurs is Howard Schultz, who went to Verona in Milan. It was inspired by the coffee culture there. I'm a student of founders and entrepreneurs. Love how I built this. Love Startup Storefront, love all of the... Every book I've read a lot of founder narratives. And I started to see a pattern of founders going abroad, recognizing a new disruptive product or service and bringing it back to wherever they're from. And so I thought if I move abroad, there's maybe I'll find something at a European trade show or something that'll be in the food and beverage category and directionally knowing that maybe I'll come across something that I'll want to bet on. So one of the things that I saw ahead of this episode was you went on a trip to Colombia in Cartagena and they had their equivalent of popsicles there. What was so eye-catching about these popsicles in Cartagena that stood out to you? Because I don't know much about Colombian food or culture to that extent. And so I'm not sure if it's like a massive thing down there and just hasn't reached up here or if it was the shapes or what it was. Yeah. So like paletas in Latin American culture, just super prevalent. And when we were in Cartagena and Bogota and Medellin kept seeing these paleta shops on every corner. And at the time I was really obsessed with pressed juice, you know, the sujas and pressed juicery and you served here and was wondering why that type of clean innovation wasn't being applied to frozen desserts, which is something that I've always loved. Like I love dip in dots as a kid is probably one of my favorite products of all time. But like when I started looking at these paleta shops, they're really beautifully branded and marketed. So imagine like a pressed juicery or a juice served here, but with paletas served in a really unique and beautiful way. Hadn't seen that. There are a couple like places in the US that have done it, but no one had done it well. I didn't think that a popsicle shop or store was necessarily a winning proposition, but I did think that, oh wow, look at frozen desserts, like how much juice culture has changed from minute made to pressed juice. Let's look at frozen confectionary and what the innovation has looked like over the last 50, 100 years. Wow, it's really dated. It's all the same ingredients. There's minimal innovation. There's like a skinny cow, telente, halo top. Why isn't there like a plant-based player? Because I'm lactose intolerant. And so... With all that dairy? Yeah. No dairy for me. And I was vegan for a little over a year now, still eat a plant-based diet, but a little more in moderation, but just thought that there was white space for plant-based innovation like that. Yeah. You're in Milan. You see that there's space for growth in this plant-based dessert industry. What's the next step for you? Do you immediately jump into trying to create your own, piggybacking on someone else's work and partnering with them? What's going through your mind at that time and how do you find this product that eventually becomes Dream Pops? Yeah. So I'm hitting, on my weekends and vacation, I'm hitting trade shows in Italy, in France, in Germany, wherever I could go, candy shows in Frankfurt, whatever I can find. And so I have this thesis of frozen confection. I'm in the heart of gelato country with Milan and Italy as just these incredible food artisans. So there's a lot of really cool innovation shops like Marchese in Milan and Princi, which is an incredible coffee shop. So I'm exposed to a lot of that. And I did come across somebody who had created the initial workings of the Dream Pop and ended up partnering with him to bring it there. I'm not a chef. I'm not a great cook. But I think we knew that with the right team. We could bring something and commercialize it to the states. And what was it that you had to do to convince this guy to partner with you? Did you have to show him your vision for what the company could become? Were there other suitors that were after partnering with him as well that you beat out? What was that process like? Because I'm sure that he's probably pretty protective of his formula at this point. And so you've got to come in and then convince him, I'm the right person to help you take this to the market. And here's how we're going to do it. So how did you go about that? Imagine just a really crazy, passionate, relentless person who's 20 voicemails and does not stop emailing. The second I saw the product, I knew I had a really visceral and gut reaction that this is something I have to do. So I flew out to Berlin. We ended up acquiring the intellectual property at the time we partnered. And I don't know how else to describe it, just absolute relentlessness. I just knew I was not. You saw it. You figured it out. That was it. I saw it. I knew I had to go. The second I tried it, I knew this was what I was going to be committing to. And it's interesting because when you think of a popsicle, you're quitting five years of investment banking, grinding to sell a popsicle. Here are a lot of people, a lot of colleagues, my parents, I love them. They always supported me. Even my dad was like, you're quitting banking to sell ice cream pops. That's wild. What'd you tell them, though? What'd you tell them in that moment? I said, trust me, you've got to believe. I can see it. And I think, look, we have an amazing team in place. But this comes back to something that I believe, which is the first idea product. It's rarely going to be that that ends up turning into the scaled business or the product market fit. That's why I do think entrepreneurship is a sport. I think you can take any widget or product and you can see how good is that founder at pivoting to a real business. And whatever industry that is, I do think most people may be barring a few bad timing or terrible product. You can pivot or tweak a product to success. Yeah. That's what Harry Kargman, yeah. He said the whole game is basically pivoting faster than all your competitors and just owning the market as fast as possible. He's a New York guy, super smart guy. He's in the creative ad space. When you first met them, did they already have these products or was like, what was it? It was just a formal look. It was one product that dream popped as is, one, two flavors, no name, no brand. It was actually a failed business at the time. And so it really was like, look, I want to take this, I want to partner. Let's bring this to the States. I'm going to do my job. I'm going to fund it. Did they want to stay on or no? We ended up parting ways, which was the best. But just different perception on long term vision. I think there was anything I've learned in my whole life. I can't do partners per se. That's more of a me thing, probably. I just have my own speed. I got my own cadence. And if you're not with it, it gets friction-y. It's a marriage. It's having a co-founder or a partner, especially as the business changes. And you need to make tough decisions like I fully get that. So you backed it yourself at the beginning? Yeah, early days took my savings from banking and just put it in. And then I had two friends who gave me a little bit of cash to really make this happen. I was careful. I didn't want to go raise millions of dollars. I was nervous. I wanted to make sure that this was a real company, a real business, and maybe to a fault because I do think I realized how much capital would be required to really do this. But at the beginning, so once you've acquired it, once it's all state-side, what are you doing with it? Are you thinking like purely getting grocery stores? No. Initially, I wanted to be the daily harvest of ice cream. All Ecom was reading about Warby and Casper, and wow, daily harvest is absolutely on fire. Maybe we can do this for ice cream. I think that was, it was, it was the wrong business model. And so we went hard in 2018 selling ice cream online for about three and a half months and then quickly realized how expensive it was to acquire customers that we had melted pops on people's doorsteps. Yeah, that's the hard part about the frozen section. Yeah, and so then there was, there was a big pivot that happened that winter when we said, guys, I think we need to move into grocery stores. So I literally, you know, we started, our team started hitting grocery stores one at a time, literally back, back to being relentless and obsessed, showed up at Bristol Farms HQ with not a real meeting and eventually got the product in front of the buyer. And, you know, he gave us, shout out to Roger, gave us a shot. And then Erwan also gave us a shot when we were, when there were four stores. Those two companies really are the reason that we're here today. So. So going back to the marketing perspective though, like, so you get it in these grocery stores, like, you can't stop there. Were you doing display cases or like, where people could try it in the store as well? Or was it all digital marketing coupled with the in-store presence? Combination of the two, we were demoing as much as we could, like, you know, me and, you know, my partner at the time, we were out there, you know, we get the product into four stores of Erwan, we hit every Erwan with a little booth and sampling product, getting people to try it. Cause once we could get someone to try it, then they're like, this is really unique. It didn't have the same packaging. It wasn't optimized for the shelf, but it just looked differentiated enough that geometric shape that we could get. And once someone tried it, they're like, oh wow, this is pretty good and can convert to a sale. The other thing that's interesting about Dream Pops that a lot of people don't know is we're a manufacturer. So we have patents on the designs. And it's like a car that you build custom. This is not usually in the food and beverage industry of co-packers and you have people that can make the product for you. This has been built through five commercial kitchens to our own factory where we manufacture ourselves, going from my mom's commercial kitchen to like 300 square foot space, 500, 700, a team of 15 that we were on the line with making product for. And now we've officially hired a team and have built our factory to make the product. That's pretty cool. Describe it for people who like, is it a hexagon? How do you describe it to people who? Yeah, it's a dodecahedron. A dodecahedron. There you go. And then at some point, so 2018, now you're in stores, COVID hits and it's maybe seemingly terrifying, but it's probably the best thing that it could have ever happened. Yeah, it's interesting, right? Because you would think that there were a lot of businesses that really benefited D2C during COVID. So we had no idea how it was going to affect grocery stores. Will people go in and buy products, a frozen product? But luckily in 2019, we spent all that time getting into Whole Foods and close to like four or 500 grocery stores. And then by the time it was 2020, when COVID hit, we were in probably about 800 to 2,000 stores and plant-based novelties, frozen ice cream, it exploded in popularity and we got really lucky. And so if you were at a point where you're building a brand you didn't have the distribution, it was a really tough time. Versus if you had the distribution and you're an emerging brand, it was beneficial. So as you are, like today, so now it's almost like you've proven the market, you've proven your original hypothesis around this must exist, it's healthy to some extent, it's an edible that works for you, you've solved your problem, but now you're on everyone else's map, right? And so now it's like, are you starting to see the competition come in? It's easy for these companies to pivot. What has that been like for you during this time? Is it friendly? I mean, definitely not. I think our industry is one of the most competitive, these trade shows, you launch an innovation and there's five look-alikes at the next trade show. It's cutthroat, you're dealing with not the same kind of margins that a SaaS technology company might have, but we've been back to, we built it the long way. Everyone thinks that this has happened overnight getting into 4,000 stores and building the company, it's taken six years of work. I see a lot of people enter the space after two, three years, usually they're either out or they've made it through that really challenging period. So now back to your question. The Bites product, which you'll see, that's kind of like a Nestle's dib, it's a chocolate-coated bite. And I wouldn't call it a pivot, I would call it an extension that just exploded, has done extremely exceptionally well for us. And the combination of a pop, which is more of a less shareable, your own popsicle that people love, and a bite, which is a more shareable, snackable product coated in chocolate, the two of those things have allowed us to become perceived as a platform brand and a confection company. Before, when we were just popsicles, everyone was like, oh, that's a cute little popsicle brand that's a fad. Right, right, right. Are there any other products that you're starting to look into? Yeah, I'm really excited. I can't share anything now, but we are going outside of Frozen. We wanna be the next Mars, Hirsch year Ferrero of plant-based desserts. So 2022, we're gonna be outside of ice cream. We're gonna have some really fun innovation. The thesis now is let's look at American classic desserts and let's reimagine them with plant-based ingredients. Seems like an O-brainer. It's just fun. Like, it's something that our team's really passionate about. Like, what do you love? Do you love Dunkaroos? Do you love Insert Fruit Rollups? Name your favorite cult dessert and let's make it healthier. From a marketing perspective, right? So now you're in the game of like, okay, we have obviously an established brand, people can get to know you at two different points. Is there a part of you that says, you know, let's partner up with Chrissy Teigen, let's partner up with some celebrity who this solves their problem in a real way and then go like massive with your new launch campaign of whatever product you're launching? We've got some cool celebrity investors, athlete investors. We haven't really brought them to the public yet. I'll say with these new products, we probably will. But we're not going to be a brand that relies heavily on a celebrity partnership. If you look at our TikTok, our Instagram, for an ice cream brand, we look like a content company and we are a content company. So I don't see us relying on like tier A. We look, we'll work with celebrities but that's not our strategy. Every, you know, it's funny, I think maybe like three years ago the switch of you can be a company with a product but you'd have to be just as good as content at content at a certain point. You basically have to be a media company and a product company in today's environment. And if you're not, your brand is going to be worthless pretty quickly. When did that light go off for you in terms of content? Yeah, and I'll credit Josh, who's sitting behind us. What up Josh? What up Josh? He runs a marketing partnerships and brand for us. He's been with us for about two years now. When he came in about two years ago, it was an empty room with me and a ring light. And this is before TikTok was, you know, just convert from musically to TikTok. There were no brands on the platform. And we had built the brand on Instagram over the last X number of years and we're like, it's good, but you know, it's not explosive or anything. And so I said, hey Josh, I just filmed three TikToks on this weird platform. One of them got like 40,000 views and now we've got a thousand followers. Like we're going to commit to this and this is fall 2019. I have a feeling about this. You know, I shout out to Gary Vee because he was just screaming about it and I was listening. And I'm like, we're going to make three, two to three TikToks every single day for the next two years. So let's see what happens. And so then things got really exciting because this is when no one else was on there. And so, and we're like, do why is no, holy crap, this video just got a million views, 500,000 views, 600,000 views. We're getting 10,000 followers a week. And you know, we've built that to, I think we've got like five million likes, 50 million organic impressions, 180,000, 70,000 followers. It's a true media channel and that was back to what you mentioned with Facebook back in the day. We're like, this is going to be real. We did that and then LinkedIn was the other one that we built it on. I'm going to ask you this candidly because I know, like I have a lot of finance friends, they hate social media. Oh yeah. They're like, show me the ROI, it doesn't pencil, right? They go real quick into the finance game of it. Totally. And so was this a complete mind flip for you or was it like once you released the three, you saw it and then that proof was it. You were like, we're doubling down on it. I've been a marketer trapped in an investment banker's body for four and a half years. I loved it. The one that was the hardest was in TikTok. It was LinkedIn because all my finance friends would see the content I was posting. And you'll see, we still on my personal channel posting two to three times a day and I've done, when we saw that with TikTok, we were like, oh, let's try this with LinkedIn and it worked at the same time. And so for the last three years, we've done the same thing just with editorial static photos and content. And I will tell you, there were a lot of people, even to this day, they're like, you're really active on LinkedIn. And then I'm like, we'll look at the organic reach on both platforms. It's the equivalent of television campaigns for free. LinkedIn has been really good for the podcast, oddly enough. I guess it, I don't know. It's been worked out. I mean, we've seen them. It's pretty cool. It's probably the perfect platform for your podcast. Well, to me, it makes sense. I mean, it's like the type of listener that we're trying to cater to probably lives on LinkedIn more than any other platform. So it makes sense to focus on that because if you are a budding entrepreneur or an entrepreneur in the weeds, you're, yeah. I need to get better at LinkedIn. LinkedIn is paying people to be creators right now. Isn't that odd? That's a professional service platform. I think they all do that a little bit. That's how I view podcasting too. When I thought of, when we first started the podcast, I was like, Nick, there's under a million podcasts. Like, when will you ever join anything that has under a million people in it? And of those million, I would say, a quarter of them were never gonna be heard from again. Like it was somebody just dabbled, maybe released eight episodes, but that was it, they're gonna quit. And so I was like, we're in a game where it's literally longevity and just being there, being present, getting better at the craft, having engaging conversations, but just being present, I think is gonna help us win. How about like, you guys get to sit down with like incredible, like not me, but other really bad entrepreneurs. You're not yourself in that. But like in chat and chop it up, network and then put that content out and build your brand. Like that's how we see our podcast too. Like how fun is that? Why wouldn't you do that? I tell people it's like therapy when they ask me. They're like, what is it really like? I'm like, honestly, it's therapy. And I think that our listeners agree, you know. Plus you're helping people. It's nice to know you're not alone in the... You're giving people advice or value. Yeah. And so now you're doubling down on your content too, you have a whole team, you're doing, you have a podcast, what other kind of things are you guys doing on the digital media? Yeah, so we're a content engine day one. We've got Instagram content, LinkedIn, TikTok. We've got a newsletter that's over a thousand subscribers now we're doubling down on. We've got Stick With Your Dreams, which is a podcast where we interview founders and talk about how they build their businesses. And then we're dabbling with Snap, Discord, YouTube, IGTV. One of the things I wanted to talk about, and it's a bit of a left turn, but you had a wine company at one point. Yep. And I saw it somewhere that the boxes got yeast into them and exploded in Whole Foods. Oh yeah. Did that ever come up when you started to get dream pops into Whole Foods? Surprisingly no, and I'll give credit to my co-founder at the time, Max Hinchman, because he was really like the face in running that company and dealing with the sales meetings. And so yeah, luckily it did not, but that did happen. Yeah, we had no idea what we were doing and we bottled these box wine boxes ourselves and the bladders exploded on shelf. So back to dream pops, you know, we tried a couple other, I was actually also a hip hop artist for a short stint. You wrapped? Yeah, still wrapped. Still wrapped? Really? Yeah, so put out an EP and a mixtape and yeah. That's amazing. A couple failed ventures. You're still wrapping them. Yeah, I wouldn't call that failed at all. Yeah, you're still in the hunt. There you go. You never know, maybe we'll bring it back someday. So we just had Wendy Dan, the podcast, who was founder of Rap Coalition. She helped Master P, Eminem, Lil Wayne. Super cool. All these individuals. And basically I asked her candidly, I'm like, what is the linear path for rap success? And she said, you have to be 26 and under and you need $150,000. Those are the two things. And she's like every artist- That's a lot of people that could be successful. Yeah. But she was saying, you know, a lot of artists, they kind of just hope that they're gonna get found on social media or something like that. And they don't realize that they are a company. And so they have to partner in summa with a business person, business mind, and then become a brand. And it takes about $150,000 for you to even potentially see an ROI. Which I loved because she's in the game, literally. And so for her to be helping these people in a meaningful way and then spewing those facts, I think it's helpful. Cause I think there's a lot of people out there with either no capital, reject the notion they need capital. I think the talent's gonna stand on its own and it's just not the way life works. To touch back on that, I mean $150,000 is a ton of money. So I'm not gonna say that. But what I will say is you think about becoming a successful musician or artist and how impossible that might seem to the fact that she thinks if you have moderate talent under $26,000 and $150,000 that you, I mean I agree if you execute properly it makes sense to me. Well it helps to break above the noise because you might have your following on social media and that core group of followers knows you're talented, you know you're talented. But if you don't treat yourself as a business and you don't take the time to, cause that $150,000 is mostly going towards marketing and promotion. And so it's getting your name out there in a meaningful way. And if you don't view that side of the equation then you really have nothing. And she says she sees it all the time where people who find investors or who have access to capital and treat that side of it as just as important if not more important than the talent side. Those are the ones who succeed even if they're stepping over five, 10 more talented artists on their way up to the major leagues. They're marketers, right? I mean, I know we've worked with the flight house guys before and I watch how they are able to deploy dollars to get, you know, listenership, brand awareness for musicians. Like it's really interesting. Let's talk about you in five to 10 years. What does it look like? You exit out of this, is your rap crew, you, what's the thing? What are you working on? Yeah, you know, I'm lucky to say that I really love this category space and brand more than anything. I really love what I do. So I'm in no rush. I don't really want to sell the company. At this point, I'd love to IPO it, take it public and be a real contender in the confection game because I'm lucky that the category where we're finding traction is something that I really relate to and love. So that would be fun. I do make small, tiny investments in other food and beverage companies or advice for other brands. And I love doing that. I've got a couple that I'm involved with, one called Chubby Snacks, which is like an uncrustable, plant-based uncrustable. Another one called Mescla, Daring Foods, which is a plant-based chicken. So just food innovation, maybe raise a fund and invest in other food and beverage brands and help entrepreneurs, I love that. I should put you in touch with, have you heard of Sprout Adventures? No. It's guy named Morgan Keem. He's been in the, basically a lab, so I mean, his world view going back 10 years has been food is gonna be in a lab, food is gonna be all plant-based or some version of that. It's gonna be shipped just like Amazon packages are shipped. The whole farming has to die. Again, he sites like bananas as the most obvious example. So bananas are a, it's a mono-specie, has not evolved at all. And so there's this one pest that basically has evolved and it could really like wipe out all the bananas. And so he's been looking at it like, if we have a lab to either change the sequence or intervene in this pest killing the banana-specie, we could actually help, let's say coffee be made with less water and then moves itself into essentially warehousing of food. And he's been on this for probably a decade. Have you heard of the Oishi Berry? No. Yeah, I should check it out. It's Omakase Strawberry. That is only. Omakase Strawberry. Yeah, it's this beautiful, like just luscious strawberry that's only native to a certain place in Japan. And they found a way to replicate that in doors with vertical farming. And so I mean, these are probably the best strawberries I've ever had in my life, but they're large and really plump and they know they raised a lot of capital but back to in your vertical farming. Yeah, it's pretty cool. We're gonna have him on the podcast. I'm gonna introduce you to him. That's how he views the future and he's been on it and oddly enough, he's more. The thing that's also in natural foods industry is like everyone eats food every single day, right? And if you look at not to knock the big boys in the space, but they're just marginal innovation, they're distribution companies and they're pretty bloated and slow moving and they don't have the time to be investing in digital, strategy and communication, grassroots, pivoting, tweaking, they have shareholders so they can't make huge bets or take huge risks. Well, that's why they acquire. They at least at some point recognize that other smaller companies are doing this much better than them. So, and they have the capital to acquire which is kind of why, like your mentor that you first started out with, sold it to Coke. They are in a vicious battle with Pepsi right now in the better for you category because they recognize that sugary sodas are not selling as well as they used to because the market as a whole, I think, is waking up to what we put in our bodies matters and I think that you're gonna see it in, you know, for them, I know Pepsi specifically, they were working on more than just the beverage category, they were also looking at healthier snacks and stuff like that. Well, in terms of that, like, have you had any companies? Like, I know you said you wanted to reach an IPO status but have you had any companies reach out to you looking to acquire Dream Pops? Candidly, we've had conversations but it's just too early. I mean, we're such a small, like, you know, young upstart, it's not really worth that and I just think our team is too excited to really engage in that right now. Did they ever threaten you or they're like, we're coming after you? Honestly, yeah. They give you like, they send you a product in the mail. We've got a couple people that, you know, they definitely have said, all right, you know, if you don't want to chat, we'll see you out on the field. So it's, look, it's really competitive. You're fighting for limited shelf space. I think people don't realize too, in retail, it's like applying to college, you know, if you want to get your product on the shelf, it takes a year, you got to submit to the buyer, take the meeting and then if you win it, it takes six to eight months. So you got to cash flow the business long enough to be able to even see that forward-looking revenue. What's the next hurdle that you foresee down the line for Dream Pops? Are you in it right now? Or is it something that you think maybe in a year or two to really expand, we're gonna cross X playing field or whatever it might be? Yeah, so, you know, we are growing nationwide and internationally. We've, Canada has been an amazing market. That's been a lot of fun. I think we're just seeing certain supply chain challenges as we grow with, you know, shipping, coconut milk and coconut cream internationally. That can be really tricky. Frozen trucks, all of our product goes around the country in frozen trucks and frozen warehousing. It's really competitive. So optimizing those freight deliveries and ensuring that we, you know, do that in a way that doesn't break the bank. Hiring the right team and just leveling up our marketing and becoming a little more sophisticated. I think we're also super pumped to launch D2C and outside of Frozen, because we've been building this as a retail company. And but we built a digital brand for retail. And so finally we'll be able to tap direct to consumer and Amazon to sell products that are more reachable to individual households. So Amazon will ship it? Also? Yeah, so it'll be on Amazon, it'll be on direct to consumer. It will not be a frozen product, it'll be shelf stable. Okay. I did see that you also had a subscription service on your website. Have you seen that take off? Or is that something that you think will be like a player, but maybe not the main focus of the company? Yeah, I think someone who's done it while it's daily harvest, for us right now it's not a big piece of the business. I think in the future it could be. Subscription's amazing. The best business model there is. It's how Netflix beat Blockbuster. I don't know if you guys ever saw that documentary, it's awesome. They talk all about the golden model subscription. So would love to build that in, but right now it's just about single purchases. Well listen, tell everyone where they can find your goods. Yeah. All the grocery stores, shouting all out. Done. So we're in about 4,000 stores, Whole Foods Global, Erdogan, Lassens, Bristol, Citarella, H-E-B, Wegman, Schnucks, Gelsons. List goes on, you can check out our store locator on dreampops.com. Check us out on Instagram at dreampops, tiktok, at dreampops. And you can check out Josh, who is the king of tiktok. Shout out to Josh. Yeah. Yeah, David, thanks for coming on the show. Guys, thanks so much for sharing our story, I really appreciate it. You bet.