I built a gelato company on nights and weekends. Then we sold it.

A Pop Up Gelato tabletop station with a brushed-steel sign and a eucalyptus garland along its base, set up at an outdoor event — the tabletop station, dressed for an event

Tuttimelon Fresno closed on a lease in early 2013, with Modesto still hanging on. 6 months later I had a full-time job at Jade Orchard, a San Francisco Bay Area marketing agency, and a spreadsheet for the next thing.

The next thing was gelato. It was frozen dessert again, but this time the business would go to the customer instead of waiting for the customer to walk in.

The gap was frozen custard

In the early 2010s, frozen custard catering out of food trucks was having a moment in the Bay Area. Companies were booking trucks for employee events, and people lined up. I knew how to run a frozen dessert business from Tuttimelon, and I could see the gap sitting right next to the trucks: the trucks were all custard, and a truck can’t park in a lobby. Gelato, in a format small enough to set up indoors, was wide open.

So my partners and I built the smallest version we could. A tabletop gelato station: mobile, quick to set up, small enough to pop up anywhere someone would let us. Lobbies, courtyards, hotel ballrooms, and eventually a factory floor.

The company was thought up in the NEMA apartments in San Francisco, and the first event was there too, January 2014. The second was Orbit Baby, a stroller company in Newark. After those 2, we knew people would book it.

A lease closed Tuttimelon, so we built the next company to move.

We did eventually take on space, but on our terms: 2 distribution hubs, one in San Francisco and one in Fremont, with gelato tasting rooms where clients could come taste flavors before booking. I designed both rooms, and in Fremont I did the upgrade myself, down to the flooring. We only paid for space that helped us sell or serve, which was the opposite of paying mall rent for foot traffic.

The San Francisco tasting room: two Pop Up Gelato tabletop stations on a black-draped table in a bay window, a couch and reclaimed-wood coffee table in front — the San Francisco tasting room, set for a client tasting. First logo again.

The Fremont tasting room: gray walls, floating shelves with wooden PUG letters, two branded stations on a black-draped table, a navy futon and dark coffee table on new wood-look flooring — Fremont, finished

Marvin crouched on the subfloor in a Warriors cap and red sunglasses, hammering the first row of laminate planks into place along the wall — Fremont, mid-upgrade

Weddings were the business from day one

Nobody was searching for a “mobile gelato bar” in 2014, so we had to go where the buyers already were, and the buyers were engaged couples.

A couple planning a reception is about as motivated as an event buyer gets, and on a Saturday in wedding-fair season they’re all in one room, walking past your table. We worked those fairs hard in 2014. From the start we were also getting added to the trusted-vendor lists at wedding venues around the Bay, and that list kept paying off: a venue recommends you, a couple books you, their guests see you, one of them is planning a wedding. Kohl Mansion in Burlingame, the event hall at Forager Coffee and Eatery, and Bridges Golf Course in San Ramon all had us on their lists, and every one of those bookings was another room full of people who’d never heard of us.

Marvin and a Pop Up Gelato co-founder behind two tabletop gelato stations at a wedding fair, 2014 — a wedding fair, 2014. First logo.

Yelp Elite events, invitation-only and full of people who photograph their food before they eat it, taught me the other half. People eat with their eyes first. How the gelato looked in the pan, how the station was dressed (the eucalyptus at the top of this post is the kind of detail that ends up in every guest’s photos), how the scoop landed in the cup. Presentation was the marketing.

The brand itself came last. We launched fast, with a blue wordmark and almost no thought to branding, because the point was to find out whether anyone would book us. About a year in, once the calendar said yes, we rebranded: brushed steel, thin type, the pink stamp in the O you see at the top of this post. Fit first, then brand. The early photos in this post still wear the first logo. That’s how fast the first year went.

Marvin and a partner prepping gelato behind the station before a Yelp Elite event, 2014 — prepping for a Yelp Elite event, 2014

By that first summer we were the featured dessert at Rodney Strong’s jazz concert series in Sonoma, weekends through August, with the big equipment. The corporate work came the same way: one event, then a referral, then a company’s name on the client list. Google, Apple, Netflix, Salesforce, Oracle, Uber, SpaceX, Waymo, Genentech, Stanford, UC Berkeley, Kaiser Permanente, Dolby, Fitbit, Intuit, CBRE, and plenty more. Events from 80 people to 12,000, Napa to Santa Cruz, and down to LA and Orange County.

The biggest one

The biggest was Tesla. We served the entire Fremont factory plus the satellite locations, including the Palo Alto engineering HQ. 12,000 employees over multiple days. Then they had us back, more than once.

I have a photo from inside the factory: a line of people in Tesla shirts snaking past our station, forklifts parked behind them. I was still at the agency the whole time, so I’d spend the week helping clients buy media and the weekend refilling gelato pans on a factory floor.

A line of Tesla employees waiting for gelato inside the Fremont factory, forklifts in the background — working the line inside the Tesla factory in Fremont

For 4 years I was the marketer and the client at the same time. I bought media for a living, and I bought it for my own company on nights and weekends.

That overlap was the most useful thing that happened in my career. Most of what I know about what a client wants from an agency, I learned by being a client while working at one.

Carts, then a second company

Once we had the operation down, we added gelato carts to the lineup. Carts open up outdoor events and bigger footprints, and they look great in photos, which by then I knew mattered.

They also created a business we hadn’t planned on. Brands kept asking whether they could rent the cart itself, dressed in their own branding, for launches and activations. So I started Pop Carts: ice cream cart rentals, with equipment drop-off and pickup, with or without novelties, customized with magnets or a full wrap.

Supergoop parked one under the redwoods for a launch. Marc Jacobs and PopSugar wrapped one for a Daisy Dream activation. Henry’s Hard Soda wrapped one too.

A Pop Carts ice cream cart in a holographic Supergoop SPF Magic wrap, parked under redwoods — a Pop Carts rental in a full Supergoop wrap

A Pop Carts cart with a Henry's Hard Soda wrap

A Pop Carts cart in its plain white quilted finish, ready for a wrap

The exit

On August 31, 2018, Phthalo Investments acquired Pop Up Gelato. Pop Carts went with it, rolled into the same sale.

4 years and 7 months from the first scoop to the acquisition. I still think about the fact that the company built to move is the one that sold.

What I took with me

Design around the cost that killed you last time

Tuttimelon died of rent. Pop Up Gelato only paid for space that did a job: hubs and tasting rooms, never a storefront waiting on foot traffic. When I look at any business now, I look for the fixed cost first.

Get on the list that recommends you

Wedding fairs put buyers in a room once. A venue's trusted-vendor list puts you in front of every couple who books there. Build the second one.

Presentation is the product

People eat with their eyes first. The station, the pan, the scoop. I still push clients on how the thing looks before I push on how it's described.

Listen for the business inside the business

Pop Carts came from customers asking to rent the cart. The second company was hiding in the first one's inbound.

One of my partners works with me again. I hired him at Jade Orchard 3 years ago.

Want a marketer who’s built and sold the thing? Get in touch.