From Passion To Profits: How Zach Vraa Used Ice Cream To Design His Best Life

Temperatures will fall below zero and yet people will still line up around the block to pick some ice cream for $13 a pint. It’s pure craziness at first glance, but only until you realize just how good A to Z Creamery is. Zach Vraa makes sure that they’re only using the finest of ingredients and that everything is homemade and handmade. What Zach lacks in quantity, he makes up for in quality. What he lacks in scalability, he makes up for scarcity and FOMO. This is what makes his business model so unique and successful that it enabled him to quit his sales job to make ice cream full time. Zach’s story powerfully demonstrates that passion can be turned into profits and you can use it to design your best life. It’s also a reminder that when trying to create a successful business, bigger isn’t always better. Learn more about his story and pick up important lessons that you can apply in your own Boss Life journey!

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From Passion To Profits: How Zach Vraa Used Ice Cream To Design His Best Life

Usually, I’ve done every intro in my show, but we are changing it up because my brother Ben was telling me a little bit about this guy who started this ice cream shop. I'm not going to go into any of the details, but to see how he did a massive pivot in COVID is so inspiring on a whole another level. Ben, take it away.

I'm super excited to introduce to you our guest. He's 31 years old, married, and has one kid. He grew up in Minnesota and went to NDSU for college. He has a Bachelor's in Sports Management, a Business Administration minor, also an Art minor. He played football in college and attended the mini-camp for the Minnesota Vikings in 2016, but got cut. Here's the coolest part about his story, and this is why I wanted to have him on. During COVID, he made a complete pivot. He started an ice cream company called A to Z Creamery, one of the most unique business models on the planet. I'm excited to dive in. Zach Vraa, thanks for jumping on the show with us.

Thanks for having me. I’m excited to chat.

I want to explain to the audience a little bit about your brand and company. I found out about your brand A to Z Ice Cream. What’s your Instagram handle so everybody can follow you?

@AtoZCreamery.

I got to know this brand because my wife loves ice cream. My friend said, “You've got to try this A to Z Creamery.” I'm like, “Where do I buy it?” They're like, “It's a limited edition. You can't just buy it anywhere." I was like, "What kind of business model is that?" I follow it. All of a sudden, there's a lottery. I and my wife enter. This is in February in Minnesota when it's negative outside. I show up to pick up my first pint and there is a line around the block. I thought, “What kind of ice cream is this?” I'm not the biggest ice cream fan on the planet, but when I tried it the first time, I'm like, “I totally get it.”

At first, I thought, "Why is this guy not selling as many pints as possible?" One of the things that I always hated about Jordans back in the day was you only have a limited amount of them. It was like, "I can never get it." It creates that scarcity and it creates that cool factor. That's what you have with your creamery. That's just a little bit about his business model but Zach, I would love to hear your story a little bit more and how you got started. Maybe starting with college and getting into the Vikings. I'm the biggest Vikings fan. I would love to hear a little bit more of your story.

I could take this in many different ways. Very briefly in college, my major was Sports Management. I didn't know what I wanted to do. My main focus in college was playing football. I'm like, “I’ll get a major. As long as I have a degree, I’ll find a job later on.” I thought I wanted to do something sports-related, hence the Sports Management degree. Something maybe with Nike, like an agency, and do something that way.

After college, I tried out with the Vikings. I had a great college career but got cut like how many people do. After that, I transitioned into the work world. I got a sales job, which most people start out doing after college to get their foot in the door. Sales is great for making money, meeting people, getting into industries, and things like that.

During COVID, I couldn't meet people face-to-face. I was doing lots of Zoom calls. It’s like this face-to-face, but not a real face-to-face person. I was left with a lot of free time. I've always been a person that loves food. I love ice cream and desserts. I have been a baker, but I have no culinary experience or anything.

In my free time, I started experimenting with baking and making ice cream. My mom got me an ice cream machine for my birthday. I thought, “I got a couple of free hours during the day. I might as well start experimenting.” I would make all these funky flavors. I had this little tiny ice cream machine that you can buy from Target or Amazon. My biggest gripe with other ice cream shops or ice cream that you buy from a grocery store is that the ice cream is not super high quality.

It's very airy. The pint weighs nothing because there's so much air pumped into it. There are not many mix-ins. If you get a pint of chocolate chip cookie dough, there might be four little chunks of cookie dough in the whole thing. My big thing when I started was I'm going to pack this thing full of many flavors as possible. I'm going to put in a ton of mix-ins. I'm going to make everything homemade and make it a pint that people want to eat.

I started making it for myself, my wife, and friends, and then I had a little bit of an Instagram following already on my personal page from college sports, and having that food background and posting pictures of food like how people do. I would post the ice cream to give people updates about what you're doing, just like how everybody does on Instagram. I started getting requests and people wanted it or if I was selling it.

For the first couple of weeks, I said, "Sorry. I only have two pints of this. It's for me and my wife." The more I posted, the more creative the flavor got. I got more and more requests. This is where the business model came into play because I had this small machine. It only made 2 to 3 pints at a time. I would get requests from 20, 30, 40, to 50 people. Let's say I only had 4 pints available. I would offer 2 different systems. One was first come, first serve and one was a lottery.

On certain weeks, I would do first come, first serve. The first five people that DM me at a specific time would be the ones that could order the ice cream. After that, I did a lottery where I would randomly select five people from an inquiry list of 50 or so. I played with that for a month or two. It got to the point where I would be flooded with 500 DMs and I only had 5 to 10 pints available. I was thinking to myself, “I think I need to scale this a little bit.”

The demand was there. I guess I’ll skip through a ton right here, but I went through the whole process of creating the business, getting certified, and getting licensed. Once it made sense financially where if I make 50 pints a week, 100 pints a week, 300 pints a week, versus my job I'm currently doing, at what point would it make sense to do ice cream full-time? Once that happened, I quit the sales job and moved into ice cream full-time.

How often are you releasing right now?

Right now, it's one flavor every week and it rotates. It's a different flavor. I rarely repeat everything. It's a scarcity model because right now, I'm still making as much as I can. Everything is hand packed. I'm not using factory automated machines. I'm not with a co-packer. People always ask me, “Why don't you make more?” It's because I'm literally putting everything into a pint by hand, mixing it around, putting a lid on it, and then giving it to the customer.

I remember when my wife was like, “I want to try this.” I was like, “Okay, let's try it.” She's like, “By the way, the pint is $13.” I was like, “A $13 pint? This ice cream has got to be made of gold.” I got to be honest, it is. When you try Ben and Jerry's, that's probably one of your biggest competitors. You're like, "This is pretty good." Once you try A to Z Creamery, you say, "That is absolute crap. This is incredible." That's what it is. In Minnesota, It will be negative outside and people will line up around the block ready to pick up your ice cream, which is craziness to me. I love the business model

I'm very fortunate to have the following that I do. I have a handful of people that will scoff at me for trying to sell pints of ice cream for $13. As I said earlier, everything is homemade. Everything is hand packed. It's me and one other gal that are packing pints. We use good ingredients. We use a ton of high-quality stuff. When you're buying Ben and Jerry's, they make millions of pints. Their margins are super low, but they're also selling millions of pints, so it makes up for them. I'm selling a low volume, so I have to sell it for more to make money at the end of the day.

Was your wife on board from start to finish with this or was there some convincing? How did that come up?

There was definitely convincing that had to happen. During COVID, everybody had hobbies that they wanted to do and everybody wanted to start a business, but for a lot of people, it didn't make sense. She's a very financial person and very analytical. She wants to see the numbers and how everything would work. I'm at the exact opposite end of the spectrum. I'm very creative. I go on gut instinct.

Passion To Profits: During COVID, everybody had hobbies that they wanted to do and everybody wanted to start a business, but for a lot of people it didn't really make sense.

I tell her, “We should start a business. I'm going to quit my job.” She's overloaded with all this information. I came with her with all the numbers, all the facts, and everything. I presented it to her. I had a little presentation set and then once I showed her that this was financially responsible, she was totally on board. She supported me the whole way through. It has been awesome.

Did she work outside the home or is she a stay-at-home mom?

She works from home, but she does have a corporate job. She's in accounting for hedge funds.

That makes sense why she's financial.

At this point, things are going in a great direction and you've created a lot of FOMO. That's a real thing, fear of missing out. At this point, where do you see your business model going? Are you going to continue doing what you're doing? What's your end game with this?

I get that question a lot. People ask me, “What's your five-year plan? What's next? What's your ten-year plan? What do you want to do?” As I said earlier, I go on gut instinct. I go with the flow. When a lot of people try and scale, you lose the quality and you lose the connection with your customers. I’ve told myself, “Screw scalability. I'm going to continue to keep doing what I love. I want to be in the kitchen, making it myself.” I may hire a handful of more employees down the road, but I like the fact that I'm making everything and I can control everything. Maybe I will be hiring some more employees down the road.

A lot of times, when people try to scale, they lose quality and connection with their customers. Screw scalability. Keep doing what you love.

Once I get to the point where there are 3,000 to 5,000 people showing up at the door, that could be a little tough. Maybe the next step after that is opening up a shop but not being open to the public. People can show up anytime throughout the day. I have somebody working at the front desk. If you come in, you can't order a scoop of ice cream, but anybody can pick up the order at any time during the day. If I do sell 5,000 or 10,000 pints, that would be great if I could do that in a week. I could say, “Our hours are 12:00 to 7:00 PM Monday through Friday. You can pick it up at any time.”

Right now, my pickup slots are very small because I'm the one that's packing the ice cream and doing all the work. If somebody randomly knocks on the door, I have to wash my hands. I have to pull up my laptop and get the order number. I make a 15 to 20-minute window where everybody comes. I get that five times a week. There are lots of different options, but I want to keep it to the model that it's currently at and not open up a scoop shop that everybody else has in the Twin Cities.

You've got a unique business model. You want to lean into that. Speaking of unique business models, I love that your marketing is a little bit unconventional. It's Instagram and the videos you do are cheesy. They are super unique. Talk to me a little bit about your marketing plan.

Marketing has been one of the most fun parts of the business. A lot of people have asked me, and I've told some people, "Making ice cream is a cover-up for my acting career." We have a lot of fun. The videos came pretty naturally and we didn't even try to do that early on. When I was selling ice cream pints from the start, I would take a picture of the ice cream.

Passion To Profits: “Making ice cream is just a cover for my acting career.” – Zach Vraa

I would write a little description of it and say what the flavor is. There's more of a story behind it that people can connect to, which customers like. They've gotten a little bit longer. The pictures look a little bit more professional from the start to now. The videos started as the behind-the-scenes when I was making the ice cream. The owner of the commercial kitchen is also a marketing guy. He's the videographer for me now, which is awesome.

We've teamed up from the start and now we're still together. He started randomly taking videos of me making the ice cream. That was our pre-hype video, giving people a teaser of what is to come without announcing the flavor just to create some excitement. It transitioned from behind the scenes to more of some skits or more of some B-roll footage of what the flavors are, but not announcing the flavor. We started with the skits, and then they got a little cheesy. We have a lot of fun with it.

Your newest flavor, Berry Manilow, it’s incredible acting.

That's probably a top-five video for me.

My guess would be that you're a Millennial. Correct me if I'm wrong. A lot of them define success by how society defines success. I feel like a lot of times, they're like, “Bigger, more badass, scale it.” You're like, “No, this is the business model that I love. This is what success means to me. This is my definition. I'm going to be unconventional and I'm going to own who I am.” Have you ever felt that pull from society or are you so confident that you could care less about what the definition is in society? I'm intrigued by that.

I wouldn't say I’ve been pulled with my mind being changed. I'm a pretty stubborn person and I'm going to do what I want to do at the end of the day. When I was starting, there were so many people that told me, “You can't do this. It won't work. This isn't going to be able to scale years down the road. You won't be able to maintain a business.” I tell those people it has worked for me in the past.

There are so many parts of this business that work and it is unconventional, but people haven't seen it before. People don't know that it doesn't work because everybody has a scoop shop. If you're not in a scoop shop, you're selling grocery stores. I'm one of the only people in Minnesota that sells pre-packaged pints directly to the consumer. That's my only source of sales, which is crazy to think about.

Even talking to people in the ice cream business about how to make ice cream, I make my ice cream from scratch. I don't buy a mix from anyone and add extracts and flavorings. When I’ve talked to people in the past about how to make ice cream, I tell them I make it from scratch. They're like, “You can’t scale with that.” I’ll ask other people, “How do you make a good peanut butter ice cream and how do you do this?”

When I tell them I make it homemade and it's in my shop, they don't know how to answer it because everybody does things on such a large scale that there's no real book to do everything homemade. Since I make a new flavor every week, I'm figuring things out as I go. At the end of the day, it has been working. The people that have told me that I couldn't do it, I toss them behind me and keep chugging along, doing what I love doing.

When people say you can’t do it, just toss it behind you and keep chugging along, doing what you love doing.

What is so cool is you got a unique skillset in that you got a Business minor, but also Art. A lot of times, those two don't go together. It's interesting because you look at your business as your art form, which I think is super cool and super unique. Both I and my sister are in real estate. I preach that the best marketing we can do is doing a good job for our clients so that they're walking and talking billboards. That's what you have going on with you with a product.

There are very few products that people become walking and talking billboards. I have sung your praises from the rooftops and I don't even like ice cream. It's crazy. I think it’s because I love your business model. It's like, “He's creating that scarcity. He's creating that FOMO." I think it's one of the most unique things I’ve ever seen, which is so cool. I want to ask you a little bit more about the business model. You're releasing a flavor a week. How many pints are you doing on a weekly basis? Does it depend on the flavor or do you try and stick to a certain amount? Talk to me about that.

It depends on the flavor and depends on the mix-ins. Give or take, it's about 1,000 pints a week. If it's a short week or if there's a holiday, it's going to be less. There's only one mix-in or the mix-in is easy to make in bulk, we might make a little more. Give or take, it's about 1,000 a week.

You're using super high-quality ingredients. What's your margin on a pint?

At the end of the day, after everything, it's about over 50%. A lot of people think, “It's $13. You're probably making $11.” There's a lot more stuff that goes into it than just selling it. There are a lot of other expenses, but since I have been making more, I found a way to get better prices on labels, containers, ingredients, and things like that. I'm pretty happy with where it's at.

In COVID, a lot of people were like, “What happened? Who moved my cheese?” What was your biggest struggle or your rock bottom moment where you were like, “I don't know if this is going to work?”

It was probably early on when I was getting everything set up. I was getting certified by the Department of Agriculture, trying to get through all the finances of opening up not my own shop. I am going in on it with Amy's Cupcakes, but all the expenses that occur with starting a business, and buying machinery and equipment. That's when I was thinking to myself, “This is a lot of money to throw down. If this tanks for some reason we are going to be in trouble.” That was probably the toughest part.

I’ve been very fortunate to be so successful with the weekly drop, selling 1,000 pints. I started at the smaller commercial kitchen. From there, it started growing slowly, increasing up to 1,000 now. I tell people that ask me for advice, "Take risks early." If I had not taken that risk early during COVID to quit my job to buy all this super expensive equipment, I would've never been where I'm now.

In the beginning, you don't have a ton of money to lose. Right now, if I were to take a massive risk with all the money that we've made as a company right now, that's more money to lose. When you start taking a lot of risks at ground zero where you don't have much money and you lose, that risk is small. You don't lose much money, so you might as well take the leap early on.

I am always constantly even telling my team, “The riskiest thing that you can do is take no risk.” At the end of the day, when you are trying to figure out, “Where do I go from here,” it's so important to lean into that uncomfortable feeling and say, “I got nothing to lose and everything to gain.” Also, you have the right people around you. Who would you say would've been your two biggest cheerleaders in your inner circle? How did they help you get to the other side? Would you say you were riding solo and you're like, “I'm going to make this work no matter what?”

Early on, it was me figuring out if this hobby could even become something. Before I even had the big idea of starting a business and making this my full-time job, I tried to my think to myself, “Could this work?” Once I convinced myself it could work, I brought it to my wife. After that, she has probably been my biggest support system. I’m super close with my family. My friends all think this is the coolest job anybody could ever have.

You're known as the ice cream man. How cool is that?

It's hilarious. I’ve heard stories from some of my friends who will hear their coworkers talking about A to Z, and they don't know that my friend is good friends with me. My friend will tell them, “That's my best friend from high school.” It all starts this whole conversation. It’s pretty funny how word of mouth can spread.

You had mentioned that you partnered up. Number one, at what point did you realize, “I need a partner?” Number two, what did you look for in a partner?

I guess I use a partner in a different way. Not a partner in the business. I worked at this commercial kitchen. Once I grew out of it, I was trying to find a different space or my own space. Amy's Cupcakes were looking at expanding, and then both of us got hooked up. There was a State Farm Insurance building that I'm in now.

During COVID, their agents were all working from home. The owner or whatever you call the head agent was the only one showing up to the office every day and he didn't want to pay rent. He gave it up. Amy decided to take over the rent, and then I basically told her, "If you want to go in on this rent, I'll split it with you. I'll help you out." I use it for ice cream production in the kitchen. She uses it for storage. In terms of a partner, I guess it's just for rent, not business-wise.

To answer that question, it is just you on this. No other partners. You don’t have any financial backers or anything.

Luckily, we had enough money from our current jobs. We had a little help from the parents early on to get that big equipment expense. I didn't want to pull in investors because I didn't know what was going to happen with the business. Depending on who your investor is, they could ask for more. They want more. I thought to myself, “If I can keep this internal within the family, I'm going to do that,” so that's what we did.

Where did you get your inspiration for your ice cream flavors?

That's another huge question I get. With my creative background in Art, like I got the minor, it's something I was born with. Some people have a knack to throw a football. Some people got a knack to shoot a free throw. I have a knack for having a creative mind and coming up with flavors. I can walk through a grocery store and think, "That pear is going to go with that goat cheese or that caramel is going to go with this or that." It's an ongoing process I have in my head. I'm always thinking about flavors and how they can go together. It’s not necessarily on the culinary side with savory flavors, but if it comes to anything sweet, I'm all about it.

Now that your business is hitting on all cylinders, do you see yourself, "I'm going to be in the kitchen and I'm going to keep rocking this out for the foreseeable future?" Are there any things that you want to do as far as expansion within the ice cream, or as far as expansion with any other pieces? Are you like, “I'm loving what I'm doing. I’ll figure it out as I go along?”

Maybe another way to say it is what's next?

A little bit of both. I am going to keep doing what we're doing. The next plan would maybe be to open up my own shop where I'm not splitting the rent with anyone. I'll open up on my own. As I was saying earlier, maybe I’ll open up a retail space, but have it just be a shelf counter where people can come pick up their orders at any time. Maybe do pop-up events on weekends where people can get a brownie sundae. Hire maybe a weekend staff to have everything ready. When I come in on Monday, everything is prepped. I can get to work making it and packing pints. Small changes and tweaks, but I don't see anything major happening. Moving to co-packers or going into grocery is much on the list right now.

You have such an exclusive family feel. I love that anybody that DMs, you share it on your stories. It is very much a family feel. I feel like you could sell tours, “Come watch us make the ice cream,” and stuff like that. People feel so connected to you and to the brand, which I think is so cool.

It's funny, the Instagram will give you analytics on pretty much everything these days. Over 70% of my followers are women, which is very interesting, but it makes sense because I’ve created that business model that makes you connect with the brand so much. I'm not going to say men aren't this way, but women love listening to blogs, and people's daily life like a day in the life of this or that person. I’ve not built that model, but I think showing behind the scenes and creating a story is something that women can connect to. It’s not something that men don't connect to, but it's something that women are naturally drawn to. That business model, even though it is unconventional, works and it makes you connect with the brand a little bit more.

You have some personality to the brand. I think that's a generational difference. I frame everything in terms of real estate. The majority of my clients are Millennials and they are not brand loyal. They're people loyal. Your brand has that personality where it feels like a person. You may want to call it brand loyalty. That's one of the things that many agents are like, “I got to be with a big brokerage because of the brand.” No. As long as you are a good person and as long as you are doing good, people are going to connect with you. That's exactly what you have. It's that FOMO. As I say, it's one of the most brilliant marketing plans I’ve ever seen. Prop to you, Zach.

Thank you. You can build a company off of hype and off of FOMO, but if you don't have a good product, it's not going to be able to maintain success. Luckily, we've been able to create a product that is very good, which is why people stick around. There are lots of businesses and trends going on that are very popular for a short amount of time, but then they die off. I think with ice cream, we've figured out how to make good ice cream. We have this great marketing plan and this FOMO that naturally happened, but we're focused on making super good ice cream at the end of the day, which will help us maintain success in the long run.

You can build a company off of hype and FOMO, but if you don't have a good product, it's not going to be able to maintain success.

I found that even in real estate, it's the same thing with ice cream. Fast marketer wins at the beginning, but if you don't have the skillset or you don't have the product to back you up, good luck in keeping this going long-term. That's the power punch. It's the double punch that you've got both going for you. Congrats, Zach.

Thank you very much.

What would you say to somebody who hears your story and they’re like, “I got something that I'm passionate about. I haven't monetized it yet. I'm thinking about maybe starting a business." What would you give as some advice to somebody in your situation?

Probably two things. As I said earlier, take risks early. You never want to be left with the thought, "What would have happened if I did that 5 or 10 years down the road?” Don't ever let anyone tell you can't. I have a very unconventional model. A lot of people told me, “This isn't going to work. You're not going to be able to start a business,” just because nobody else had done it before. We're pretty successful now. We’re not a multi-million-dollar business by any means, but it's working. Go with your gut if it makes sense, and then take those risks early. You don't know where you're going to end up.

Passion To Profits: Don’t let anyone tell you that you'll never be able to start a business just because nobody else had done it before.

Ben, any other questions before I transition to Lightning Round With The Lady Boss?

Go ahead.

Here we go. Zach, you need to answer these questions in 30 seconds or less. If you wouldn't have started with what you've gone into with ice cream, what would you have done?

I would be a Nike rep traveling to college football programs. That was my dream job back in the day.

People would be surprised that you spend so much time doing what?

Being an avid sneakerhead.

Chipotle or Chick-fil-A?

Chick-fil-A.

Your favorite way to spend downtime is what?

Hanging out at the cabin and spending time on the lake in the summer.

That's Minnesota living at its finest.

What are you addicted to?

Pass. I don’t know.

What are you reading right now?

To be honest, I'm not a big reader. That's terrible to say. I read ice cream books.

Best advice you've ever received?

Be the hammer, not the nail.

Expound on that.

Basically, you want to take charge. You want to make decisions. You don't want people to make decisions for you and let everything come to you. You need to be not the aggressor, but you need to be the one to take charge of your own life.

Be the hammer, not the nail. Don’t let other people make your decisions for you. Take charge of your own life.

A most embarrassing moment?

In elementary school, I was swimming in the ocean. My swimming trunks came off in a group of about twenty people and they all saw what was going on down there. It scarred me for a while.

As an elementary kid, absolutely.

Favorite food?

Pumpkin pie.

Who inspires you?

I'm going to go with an athlete and say, Michael Jordan.

Coffee or chocolate?

Chocolate.

Of course, the ice cream man.

I love a good coffee though.

Describe yourself in one word.

Creative.

If you could swap lives with one person for a day, who would it be and why?

Elon Musk, just to know how many things are going through his head in the span of a day.

Just to see his capacity of overseeing so many big companies, it's unbelievable.

We have our last three questions. Zach, let's say someone met you and said, “I need to become the boss of my own life and call the shots. What's my first step?”

As I’ve said a couple of times already, take a risk early. Make sure you do your homework with all legal things. I know with food, there are lots of licenses and permits you need to get. Take the risk and do your homework on the legal nature of your industry.

What is your definition of a boss?

Somebody that doesn't need to be persuaded by others. Somebody that does what they want to do and isn't afraid to ask for advice. As I said, be the hammer, not the nail. Be the aggressor. Make your own decisions.

Any last words of wisdom?

You pulled everything out of me with all those questions. I don't think I got any more to give.

Zach, this was so fun. Thank you for letting us peek behind the scenes at your business and who you are. We would love for you to share how people can get in touch with you. I know you already shared your Instagram handle, but are there any other different handles that you want to share? I'm sure people are now intrigued and they're like, “I want to see the marketing. I want to see the ice cream. I need to buy some of that.”

With the power of Instagram, that's probably my main source of marketing. The Instagram is @AtoZCreamery. If you go to AtoZCreamery.com, there's a little bit more about the business and FAQ pages. You can subscribe to emails at the bottom. If you don't have an Instagram, you will be notified of the exact same things. Those are the main channels.

As I say, every single episode, it is your time to fire your fear, build your faith, and become the boss of your own life. Let's get after it, guys. Thanks so much, Zach.

Thanks for having me.