When NOT to Market Your Brand, with Paul Reiss, Founder of Protein Pints | Ep. 432

0:07Welcome to the Marketing Millennials, the no BS marketing podcast. I'm Daniel Murray. And join me for unfiltered conversations with the brains behind marketing's coolest companies. The one request I tell our guests, stories or it didn't happen. Get ready to turn the f*** up. We are back with another episode of the Mark Millennial's podcast. I'm here with Paul Reese, founder of Protein Pines. Excited to chat to him. I want to go a little bit on your story because you dropped out of college to do this. It's like what made you decide to go all in on this business? Yeah, absolutely. So I dropped out of school in 2022.

0:57I was a junior in college with one year left before I was going to finish my degree. And I was studying accounting at the time. And I think I had just one of those life moments where I realized, like, maybe this isn't what I want to do for the rest of my life. And that's what, you know, that realization was what led me to drop out of school. and give it my all towards starting a company. And let's go to like, obviously protein as a category is like crazy. Like there's protein, like everything out there. So what made you decide protein, ice cream? Like what was that pain that you're trying to fulfill?

1:42What did you see in the market that other people didn't see? Well, I think that this was just a product that I began creating for myself in something called a Ninja Creamy at home. And if you ever heard of a Ninja Creamy, it's basically just like a do-it-yourself ice cream maker. And I would mix protein in it and make that product at my house. But I realized very quickly that there was nothing, no protein ice creams on the market, like at the store. So the problem with the Ninja Creamy was I had to go and buy ingredients and wait, freeze the mix overnight just to create this protein ice cream product.

2:25Whereas I really wanted to just eat it, you know, right away, grab it from the store. So I realized that there was that gap in the market that millions of people were making it at home with their ice cream maker or Ninja Creamy, but the product didn't exist at market. And when did you, so how, so you just, you saw that it didn't exist. So how did the brand come about? Like how, what, how did you decide the name? How did you decide to what flavors to start with? Like what, how did that process go? Yeah, it really starts like all the way back to my childhood with my best friend, Michael. So we met on the school bus in kindergarten.

3:08We were both five years old and we got a really cute photo I can show you after the podcast, but it's just us, you know, eating ice cream when we were kids and we were very entrepreneurial minded. We did, we were like the kids with the lemonade stands. I remember selling Pokemon cards on the bus, you know, trading, just doing ideas every different summer. And in 2021, Michael and I, we were in college at the time, we decided to create a spreadsheet where we would write down one business idea every single day. And this was really just a fun exercise. You know, we weren't at that point, you know, like we're going to start a company, but it was just for fun.

3:55And one of those ideas was protein pint, high protein ice cream, a snack that you could, you know, enjoy without the guilt of traditional ice cream. And that's really the first instance of the name Protein Pints was in that spreadsheet and writing down that idea. I love it. It's a kind of a early manifestation of an idea. Also, I get that entrepreneur drive. I used to, I was an entrepreneurship major in college and then I was like president of entrepreneurship club. So I like know like that I was around all like kids like that in college who were just like ideas, ideas, ideas, and then just trying random things and seeing what sticks.

4:42So I think that's pretty cool. So name comes about. So what was the process like getting it to a store, like trying to get it into your first couple stores so people can actually do it? And how did you get actual, I should go back to the one part before that. How did you start testing what ice cream works with the audience and picking flavors? And then how did you get it into your first store? Yeah, so what happened, we had the idea in 2021, ended up going back to school and then dropping out a year later in 2022. and open up that spreadsheet and something just clicked where we saw the protein pine ice cream idea that we had had.

5:32And we were like, this is the one. So Michael and I decided to go all in on the idea of protein pine ice cream and we need to create a product, right? So the first step was buying the ingredients and making it at home in our parents' kitchen. And what we would do is we would give it out to our friends, our family, and just try to get as much feedback as possible. But very quickly, we realized that we needed professional help, right? Because Michael and I are two college students with no background in food, no background in nutrition or chemistry, you know, what have you. So we needed to find professional help to create a really good protein ice cream prototype.

6:16So what we did was we looked in a hundred mile radius of our house in Grand Rapids, Michigan for an ice cream shop that met very specific requirements. Namely, we needed an ice cream shop where they made everything from scratch, which I didn't noticed at the time, but it's very rare for ice cream shops to make their mix from scratch. A lot of them will get the mix brought in, or they'll just get tubs of ice cream shipped in, but very rare for them to make it from scratch. So we ended up finding, you know, a local ice cream shop where they did make it from scratch called Love's Ice Cream and Chocolate.

7:00And what Michael and I did was we went and applied for jobs there at the local ice cream shop. And the owner, Chris, he told us that all of the back of house jobs where we could learn how to make ice cream were already full, but we told him about our idea and he agreed to kind of come on board and start helping us with our formulations and also teach us how to make ice cream with something called a batch freezer which is what the piece of equipment he had in the back of his shop that could really start turning out a few hundred pints a day which for us was a lot of the time that's amazing i mean that's cool i i love that like the beginning scrappiness of this like of first coming up the idea making yourself realizing that like you only could probably make a couple a day you probably didn't have enough freezer space and then you gotta get a go then find someone else how did you how did you get your like first like deal with a store to get them on on shelves like how did how did that come about so that came through our very first event ever which was a local kind of pitch your business event in grand rapids michigan and basically it was an event where you could have a booth, kind of like a farmer's market, but they would have these judges walking around.

8:26And so Michael and I, we applied with our idea for protein pine ice cream and we got accepted. And so we created a booth, we created the materials, we used the local ice cream shop to make a bunch of samples to hand out at the event. And we made like a Google drawing logo at the time. So it was all very, very bootstrapped. And somebody from a retailer called Meijer, which is a Midwestern retailer, was walking around at that event. And they saw our booth, and they saw the crowd that was there and all the people that were so excited about the product. And I think that they saw potential. And so they gave us their business card.

9:13at the end of that event and basically helped us to get into our very first Meijer store. And so you get, you get into it, you get into your first store. I mean, so getting in the store is like one thing, but then the next part of it is like making sure that they sell through and people are selling. So how, like, what did you do to make sure that like you were getting these products off the shelves? Like people were actually buying what you you're making. yeah absolutely i mean when you're only in one store it's really easy right because just in one store so you can do events in your local marketplace which is what we did we were going out to like you know marathons we were going out to gyms we were going to farmers markets with these little samples and basically doing two things we were asking everybody for their feedback so we could continue to improve our brand, improve the product experience, just improve everything about the product and learn, really learn, you know, who our key consumer was.

10:23And then at the same time, we're sending everybody into our store that we're in. And basically we were selling out every single week at that point. That's amazing. I love like so the one store you did probably like localization events like you were trying to sell but then you it started to spread and you got into like hundreds and thousands of stores. What are you doing now that you've gotten to all these stores to make sure that like hey like brand recognition because now like they are I don't think there's many protein like branded ice creams but they are like the ones like the halo tops and like the.

11:03the ones that are close enough to like healthier for you ice cream. So how are you competing against those type brands? Yeah, absolutely. So we started with, you know, the local just stuff in our geography. And now we're marketing towards for mass awareness. And I think this was something, you know, really interesting about marketing that I realized very early on was we were the first movers in protein ice cream at the time, really. Like we're the first protein branded ice cream. And I was like, we're on such a good idea that we almost need to stop marketing or only market in certain channels so we don't go viral and we don't blow up and we don't do too much marketing.

11:54Because what I was afraid of what was gonna happen was two things. other people would see our idea and kind of try to copy it early on and we would lose that runway and then b you know if a viral video if a video goes viral let's say and we're only in one michigan store right but it goes viral nationwide you just lost all of that business so i think a common misconception and when people start marketing in cpg initially is like, I'm just going to do everything I can to go as big as I can, as fast as I can on the marketing side. But often, like that can actually be a mistake. You have to have controlled marketing depending on what stage of the business you're at.

12:42And it also makes sense. One early mover to like, there's also inventory to fulfill. And if you don't have the inventory and market they're gonna they're gonna probably go to your the next option because they're like oh i i've i've seen this option and you only can capture those people for a certain amount of time so if it's only in michigan and they see an ad like something in california they're gonna go pick up another brand and forget that your brand neighbor exists but i also want to talk about so you got into money stores you started doing smaller marketing and then controlled marketing throughout.

13:22And then what made you decide, because a lot of people do ads or they do other things, but you decided to do, well, first, how did that happen? But you got a partnership with like the San Diego Padres, like how did that come about? Like why San Diego Padres and how has that helped like protein buying? Yeah, totally. So our chief marketing officer is actually from San Diego. So he had a prior relationship with the Padres. So he ended up, you know, doing a process and vetting different sports partnerships to see who would, you know, kind of be the best partner for us. And ultimately, that was the San Diego Padres.

14:06so why that's really important is california is you know protein pines number one market for all of the you know 50 states we're in so we want to really get behind that market and invest and through the san diego padres it's just been an incredible way to to do that and create excitement locally in that market that makes it i mean i'm from san diego so i get it like the wellness communities that people who like are trying to like san diego is one of like the biggest wellness communities probably in the country probably at least top five in the country so making sure that you have that control like you said before that controlled awareness in a in a place but now it's like not really getting as controlled because you were in how many stores are you you you all in right now so currently we're in around 15 000 which i'll mention you know in 2023 we were in one store in 2024 we jumped to about 14 stores and then we went to almost you know 8 000 last year and then 15 ,000 this year.

15:24So it's just been an insane ramp up in scaling period. How did you handle each milestone of scale? Because some brands take years to get to where you are and you're there in three, four years. So how did you make sure you're inventory planning, make sure you get capital to make sure you could do this, make sure like the brand is strong enough that when it's in all these stores, people are actually like buying this product? Yeah, I think it's a great question. And it really comes down to the product and the brand. So, you know, in the first two years, when we didn't have distribution nationwide, we just were in, you know, less than 14 stores, we did over 10 ,000 local sampling interviews with people in our community to get as much feedback as possible.

16:23And then this whole process of getting the feedback and then going back to the drawing board and improving every single aspect of the product experience and that branding. Because I think I realized that if our product was something that immediately caught the attention of the passerby and stood out, you know, that was going to be worth millions or tens of millions in marketing dollars, right? So having that very distinct brand logo and mock-up and colors on our pints has, you know, gave us the opportunity to scale that quickly because the product sells itself and that is the most important thing i would think you know in marketing does the product sell itself and if it does everything else in the business can be built upon that foundation yeah i think i mean one it's a the name's great it like tells you exactly what it is it's like not something that's different it tells you exactly what you're getting it's protein pies like you know you're gonna when you pick up that i'm gonna get ice cream with protein so at least that and then like there's a specific audience for that there are people who are going to the store and want better for you ice cream or better for you or better for you any snacks like they're looking for and there's a whole community that's like scrounging around to look for like better for you chips better for you this better for you that so i think i wanted to ask you though do you think how long do you think this like protein because you you kind of hit it at the right time right like everybody started going like you hit it right before that protein was like at its like peak I wouldn't say peak I think it still will always be important but you hit it right before like everybody was like getting protein this protein that how long do you think that like this protein craze is going to keep going on and like how are you thinking about the future to like sustain like that popularity of this craze totally yeah i think you know protein is an essential building block of life and all human beings need it and really it it serves the body and you know us as human beings in so many different ways whether that be metabolism whether that be brain function, you know, if you want to, or if you're going for certain goals, fitness goals, like building muscle, you know, it just has so many different use cases for so many different types of people.

19:08I think I read recently that over 200 million Americans regularly use some kind of protein product in their day-to-day life. So just thinking how crazy that is. And, and I don't think it's going away that's for sure but I do think that the market is becoming saturated in a way that there can only be so many protein products right so I think what's going to happen is like for example for ice cream we were kind of the category movers and we you know and then there's going to be a bunch of other ones that kind of follow in our lead and are following in our lead, but only a few of them ultimately are going to make it because there's only so much room on the shelf in the stores for specific brands.

20:00Right. So kind of like what happened with Halo Top where, you know, 20 to 30 low calorie ice creams came out very quickly, but a lot of them are discontinued and only the best ones remained like Halo Top. Yeah. And I think that happened, that happens in a lot of the markets you see is the the ones with the better pro like you said better product better brand better recognition are going to be the ones that sustain like the ones that are probably forgotten are the ones that probably didn't have the best product i wanted to ask you too like where like you probably fought through a lot of like i would say like people telling you like this is going to be hard this is like you're too young like why you why are you starting this how did you get over that hump of like okay i'm building like an actual business i don't care like how old i am like for people who want to start a business like how did you get over like criticisms and people telling you that this might not be the best idea or like why are you doing this why didn't you finish college you probably heard it all how do you get over that For me, I think it was easy because, not easy.

21:18Obviously, it was very difficult and challenging sometimes. But I've always loved our product. I've loved what we created. And to this day, I still eat two protein pints every single day. And I've done that since we started the company four years ago. I've been eating our product every single day. And I think that reminder, you know, when I take a bite and I'm able to enjoy it, what we've created and just realize like, wow, this is incredible. It's just reinforced that faith that I have in our mission and what we're really providing to people and how we're serving people and bringing that joy.

22:03I think it's really easy when you can connect how you're serving, you know, the consumer, how you're serving people and your mission to the everyday challenges and, you know, the quote unquote eating glass part of starting a startup. I also want to go and then you said earlier, like when you like you did 10 ,000 tastings, like over 10 ,000 tastings in your area. Now that you've like expanded. So like into such a into 1500, 50 ,000 stores, how are you doing like new flavor testing? Like when you come out with a new flavor or come out with like, how's that? What does that process look like when you're trying to come out with a new flavor or a new product line that you're trying to?

22:50introduced to the market. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of the, a lot of it, we actually, you know, for new product lines and new flavors, these are, you know, years out or things that are happening very soon, but we, you know, had the idea years ago and had been working, you know, four years to develop it at this point. And yeah, it goes back to a lot of consumer feedback. It goes back to looking at the data, not only in what's doing the best in ice cream, but what's doing the best in protein. Because some, you know, some flavors that are obvious in ice cream might be different than protein. And because we are a combination, the crossroads of protein and ice cream, we need to look at both of those categories and data sets to be, to inform our decision making on what flavors, what trends to do.

23:46I think, too, what we're seeing is novelties in snack sizes are huge. So I think that is a big part of where the market is moving right now is towards that more snackability and smaller portion sizes because consumers are looking for those use cases in their daily lives. I think that's a good insight. I feel like I think part of it's probably like the like GLP one craze too where people want like a like uh on the go like like quick snack they don't want to like eat the whole pint by themselves like they just want like that I want my my my portions portion and then like I also think that that I mean I'm interested like how like you you said you like looking at flavors like how does that like research go do you have like a team that does that or do you are you constantly like going to store to be like okay here are the new ice cream flavors or here are like the top five flavors that i see like this protein shake brand is releasing or how does that look like doing this market research to also to like know the next trend like like glp1 like was not a big craze when you really started this now it's like a huge great gluten-free protein was a big great and i know that you have that in your branding but now like glp1 is a huge craze this is probably going to be a new craze like fiber it's probably like the next huge craze like how are you keeping up with all like the the trends in the wellness space yeah yeah i think it really comes down to the team that we have, because in my mind, I'm always thinking, coming from the perspective of, okay, what is going to sell the best and what are consumers going to love the most?

25:46That's how I'm thinking about it, but it might not always be that simple because Chris, our chief innovation officer, is coming through it with a different lens. He's thinking, well what can I actually make with the stipulations of our product you know like making certain flavors is really difficult because we need to be high protein 30 grams under 500 calories gluten-free low sugar all natural ingredients so some flavors like we can't even create because they're so difficult with all you know the ways that we want to craft our product intentionally. And then like on the sales side, our sales officer is saying, well, here's what the retailers want, right?

26:32So it's just all of these different angles and departments on our team are all coming together, bringing their perspectives and points of view, bringing the data that they're learning from their different departments. And then we have to come together as a team to decide, okay, what's going to make the most sense given all of these different facts. I love that because I used to work for a snack curating company for businesses. And we had a whole list of ingredients that we weren't allowed in our boxes. And we had RX, this was like 10 years ago but rx bar in there and like pop corners and all the brands that are like big now but back then was like these small and it was basically like a sampling system so i understand like i like that you have guardrails for like this is what we're never going to go like we always are going to stick to good ingredients we're always going to try hit out 13 30 grams of protein we always need to be gluten-free and whatever flavors fit into that that the guardrails plus that are are will sell i mean that's like the ultimate goal too like you have to create something that will sell and taste good have to fit in those guardrails no you're exactly right and it's it's challenging because i don't always you know get my way you know at the end of the day like i really believe I am still like that same kid who just loves ice cream.

28:10And I, I'm always like, you know, I might want one flavor for myself, but that might not be the right flavor that we need to create for protein pints. So I don't always get my way. Yeah. You, you, you just can go make yours and your Ninja creamy. If you knew they really need it, then you couldn't make that one. That's like the hard thing about business too is like there's things like at certain part is like you have to go where the the market goes because that market keeps you in business which is like market tells you where where you and i bet you get tons of write-ins and people telling you like please create this flavor i really want this flavor or i really want that flavor or what would be really cool or you probably see i mean with the age of like what goes viral now you're probably seeing people who make their own like ninja creamy creations that go viral and people like oh i really want something like that and i don't know if you look looking at social at all but there's probably like trends all over that are giving you high high signal that that this will be a good flavor to create for protein pints yeah yeah totally and i always i'll see stuff on social and people will be like ninja creamy is way better than protein pints and i'm like that's not that wasn't the point of this product right like at the end of the day like that's how i started you know i'm you know we created this company to serve people right and and to create value for people, like the market is moving in a better direction.

29:53It's not easy to see like more people want to live better lives through their food, right? And just be more intentional through their food because what we put into our bodies does affect how we feel and how we live our lives. So I think more and more people just want to be conscious of those things, right? So it's, I don't necessarily look at it like this is better than this. You have two options. It's your job, right, to decide what is best for your life. I agree. I mean, I also think the Ninja Creamy, the people who do Ninja Creamys, not necessarily like your market. I'm the type of person who doesn't want to spend time going to like bringing home my ingredients like you did before, put them in the freezer or like freezing it overnight and then waiting for my ice cream.

30:46Like I want, I don't want to go through that process. Like I don't have time to go that through that process. I want whatever I like that protein cream now. I don't want that. And people who are doing, if Ninja Creamy is better, but it still takes time. You still need a Ninja Creamy. You still need the ingredients. You still need to make it. You still need to do, go through that whole process of doing it. And some people hate that process. And that's like, you're not fighting against that. You're fighting against like the, like the choice paradox of good or bad, not good or bad, but better for you.

31:21I don't really think that is good and bad. I think like if you hit your calorie goal for the day, anything's good. So, I mean, better, there are better ingredients though. Lastly, like I want to ask, like, what, what are you thinking about this stage of marketing? Like, I know you talked about a stage one, stage two, and like, what, what are some things that you're betting on now that you're in 1500 stores? Like what are some things that you're thinking about for the next phase of growth? So I think once you get to a certain stage, right, you're going to be doing, there's a lot of stuff brands do the same.

31:57So like the shopper marketing, you know, some kinds of field marketing. In terms of what, where I really see us being able to have an advantage and see the market moving is Instagram and TikTok. You know, I really believe that the brands that get behind those apps and are making content that connects and entertains with their audiences are going to win. And less about selling the product and more like how can we connect and add value and entertain the audience versus like, here's my product, buy this. Yeah, I mean, I'm on board with that. I'm an organic social person. So I think that I truly believe that paid advertising is only going to get more and more expensive as like these companies who are running paid advertising have to hit their revenue goals each year.

32:57And the only way to hit their revenue goals each year and grow is to raise cost of advertising for that platform. So if you don't have your own audience or create an audience of content of like that people love and enjoy and create brand, which you've talked about a lot with like name, product, contents, probably the next distribution, like another distribution, partnerships with sports teams, things like that, making you more recognized as a brand. Lastly, I want to ask you, what is a, ask everybody in this podcast, what's a marketing hill you would die on? a marketing hill i would die on like you want to explain the question yeah like you like you you you said earlier that you believe like you should do controlled marketing for every phase like that's a hill you could be dying on that some cpg people don't do controlled marketing and they just blast marketing that's like a hill that you would like an opinion you feel strongly about in marketing that's maybe different than other people thinking?

34:02Yeah, I think simple, simple is, is better in marketing. And I don't know if that's like a controversial opinion or not, but I've always believed that. And sometimes getting to simple can be really complex. You know, I think the brands that can cut through the noise and immediately explain what the product is within half a second or less of seeing the product on shelf are the ones that are going to win. I think that's what is really separating the brands that are winning because we just have so much content being thrown at us, you know, in this day and age, right? It's more than ever before. We have so many things coming through us, you know, phones, laptops, TV, with all the screens, the advertising.

34:59If you can't communicate immediately what the product is within half a second or less, I don't think you're going to be as effective and win nearly as much as if you can do that yeah i mean i'll double down like people like people always say think like simple is it means like easy or but it actually if you really understand what you're doing simple is hard like like trying to take a 500 word piece and try to strip it down to like it's bare bones is one of the hardest things to do as like a copywriter or a writer. I try to convey what you want to say in 500 words and like 200 words and see a heart that isn't what word, like every word, every color, every choice you make is conveying something really strong to the audience.

36:02And it's like, it's different word choices and it's so hard to do. So I'll double down on that too. Lastly, where can people find you? And also where can people go buy their next protein pie? Yeah, so we're in 15 ,000 stores. Our website is just proteinpines.com. We have a store locator there. Our big retailers are Kroger, Sprouts, Target, Albertsons. And you can find me. I'm Paul Reese. You can find me on LinkedIn. Instagram would love to connect. And yeah, happy to chat and just share my story. I love talking about it and seeing other people win. Well, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story.

36:46I really appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you, Daniel. This has been great. Thanks so much for listening. Keep tuning in to hear more great insights from the coolest marketers from around the world. If you haven't already, make sure to subscribe and follow the Marketing Millennials podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you like what you hear, I would greatly appreciate you giving us a five-star rating. It helps bring more marketers into our community.