“Here’s to strong women – may we know them, may we be them, may we raise them.”

As Women’s History Month 2022 continues, it’s worth noting that there’s a distinct difference between a business that happens to be owned by a woman and a woman-owned business. Being a woman-owned business means that the owner has followed her dreams, passions, and experiences as a woman to thrive in a male-dominated world. Few business owners embody that spirit more than Nicole Frankel. 

Nicole is a mother in New York City, and, like most parents, struggled to get her four-year-old daughter to eat her fruits and vegetables. Like most kids, her daughter would shove aside healthy foods when she saw them on her plate, and Frankel began to worry that her daughter wasn’t getting the vitamins and nutrients that she needed. That’s when Frankel decided to combine her maternal instincts and business acumen that she learned from working at several startups in the past. 

Frankel would begin sneaking fruits and vegetables into the family’s homemade ice cream, and after two years of successfully getting her daughter to eat her fruits and veggies this way, Frankel decided to attend the Hudson Kitchen’s Food Business Bootcamp. Afterwards, Frankel launched Yum Actually, LLC, which specializes in crafting ice cream with nutritional foods as their main ingredients – Yummy Mango, Caramel Sweet Potato, Creamy Honey Banana, and Butternut Squash Butterscotch. The brand is now sold in 18 different food stores in Manhattan. 

Daughter Knows Best

Nicole Frankel began producing healthy ice cream for her daughter, and turned it into a thriving small business.

Frankel said that it was her daughter who came up with the name and the idea for Yum Actually when she first sampled ice cream with sweet potatoes in it. 

“I came up with the business idea about 3 years ago when I struggled to get my young daughter to eat sufficient fruits and vegetables,” said Frankel. “I resorted to turning them into something I knew she wouldn’t refuse, and that would be ice cream, of course! When she took her first bite, she yelled ‘it’s yum, actually!’ And the business name and concept were subsequently developed. Each snack cup of our ice cream contains a full serving of fruits & veggies and is loaded with nutrients. We launched the ice cream to market in early 2020 and are now sold in the majority of grocery stores in New York City. 

“Yum Actually makes a one-of-a-kind healthy ice cream for kids. In the crowded ice cream category, there are still very few healthy ice creams for kids, and we have changed that.” 

Success Despite Bad Timing

Frankel officially became a “mom-preneur” in 2019, the challenges were numerous, as the launch occurred right before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Shortly after coming up with the idea for the business, Frankel was working part-time, but had no experience in the foodservice industry – most of her experience was in data analytics for financial investment firms. She worked hard at researching the food business and ice cream food science (yes, there is such a field), as well as carefully crafting a business plan and obtaining a license and trademark for her business. 

“There were too many challenges to mention them all!” she said. “But I’ll name a few: we launched right ahead of the Covid19 pandemic and therefore had to stop all in-store demos, deliveries, and meetings. I had to meet with grocery store managers over zoom, which was a sight to behold. We did however manage to get into 40 retailers in 2020. We’ve had significant manufacturing issues, which have included lost ingredients, packaging typos, broken equipment, and double-booked production runs as well.”

Like most small businesses, Frankel has had struggles pertaining to the pandemic, but has found success, nonetheless. “We have had to book our production runs well in advance of when we had to previously, and we have had to raise our prices, unfortunately,” she said. “Everyone has. Our suppliers have raised our wholesale prices by about 30% and we’ve in effect had to raise ours by about 8%.”

Overall, Frankel is happy with her decision to go out on her own. “Ice cream is so much more fun than financial technology,” she said.

Combining Creativity and Drive

Frankel said she started the business not only because she wanted to introduce a way to get children to eat healthier, but also to explore her creative side. 

“I’ve always been very independent as well as creative. And I believe that these are critical traits to have to launch a business. My background prior to founding Yum Actually included working at various tech startups and I think that experience helped thicken my skin and helped prepare me for starting my own.” 

Frankel advises aspiring small business owners to dive head first into launching their business, and not to get bogged down in honing their products or services. 

“Most entrepreneurs spend all their time trying to perfect their product, and what ends up happening is that they get so bogged down in those details that they just never launch,” she said. “I say, launch it! Even if it’s not perfect, get into the deep end. Start getting feedback from buyers and consumers, because, ultimately, that’s what matters. Your product will evolve once you get that feedback.”

Don’t forget to check out all of our Women’s History Month spotlights this month!

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Entrepreneurs are a hearty bunch. They need drive, determination, and moxie to handle the learning curves and setbacks most business owners deal with. But does that mean that entrepreneurs need not worry about their mental health? Far from it! According to a recent study done at the Universities of California (Berkeley and San Francisco), 72% of the entrepreneur respondents self-reported concerns with their own mental health.

Should these mental health issues hold individuals back from building a business or inventing a product? Absolutely not.

Meet Kaitlyn Pierce, mom of two, founder of Pierce Social, a social media agency, and inventor of Binka Bear, a toy which helps toddlers and young children wean from their pacifiers. When Pierce was 16 years old, dropped out of school to ease the extreme anxiety she was experiencing.

The Decision to Quit School

“At the time, I didn’t totally understand what I was feeling or why, I just knew I did not want to be in rooms full of people, no matter what,” says Pierce. “To this day the sound of an alarm clock triggers severe panic in me because to me it was the beginning of my struggle to get through the day.”

As a high school student, Kaitlyn Pierce missed over 100 days of school in only two years. She says, “I was non-functional in school and basically in life. I couldn’t go to class or participate.”

And on the days she did attend, she spent most of her time crying in her guidance counselor’s office. Obvious that the traditional educational system wasn’t working, her guidance counselors and her mother urged Pierce to quit school, obtain a General Education Diploma (GED), and attend college, if possible. While her struggles with anxiety didn’t immediately disappear, a huge weight was lifted off her shoulders. Pierce was now better able to take care of her mental health.

Of the decision, Pierce says, “I could have more freedom to make choices for myself. It should have been my first clue I would need to be my own boss one day.”

In fact, she was able to obtain her GED within a month or two after quitting school. She then began taking courses at her local community college.

Pierce says, “I really enjoyed learning. That was never my problem. I just needed to have more control over how and when it happened so I could learn the coping skills I needed to deal with the anxiety I had.” But attending school was still no easy feat for Pierce, and she needed to put in a lot of effort to manage her anxiety so she could move into this new chapter of her life.

She says, “I had no help getting to school. If I wanted to go to college, work, and start my life, I had to find a way to get there. I took the bus to campus every day for over a year before getting my first car at 18. I had to work to pay for it while I went to school and tried to figure out what I was even doing. Dropping out set me up to be the person I am now, the person who will find a way to make anything happen!” It also helped her understand how working through the anxiety offered greater rewards than simply letting it hold her back.

“My anxiety made it feel impossible at first to get on the phone with anyone, especially potential clients,” says Pierce. “I hated phone calls and without them I wouldn’t have the business I do now. I had to learn to have confidence in myself and how to move on when I am triggered.”

Educating Herself

Kaitlyn Pierce chose tenacity over anxiety. She still struggled with feelings of panic and overwhelm, but she worked through and didn’t allow the feelings to stand in her way. One thing that helped her was her self-taught interest in building websites and blogging.

She says, “I used to sit at my neighbor’s house and build websites on their computer until we got one of our own at home. My blog was focused on our community at the time, and I was using the new social media tools showing up to promote it. Because of that, I was approached by a local branding company and hired on the spot to help with social media and web development. I never finished my degree, but gained more experience doing the work than I could have dreamed of.”

After having her second child, Pierce was looking for more freedom and flexibility to be home with her children. She returned from maternity leave determined to make some life changes. Says Pierce, “I launched Pierce Social in July of 2016 and worked on it after bedtime and in the evenings until I was able to replace my income.”

Only four months after starting the company, she was able to give her notice.  And Pierce, officially, became a self-employed business owner.

Inventing a Product

Launching a business is a monumental feat, but Kaitlyn Pierce didn’t stop there. Just shortly after starting her social media agency, Pierce set the ball rolling to invent a product that she’s moved all the way through the manufacturing process. But, how does an individual take that large a leap? There’s a massive jump from owning your own business to also being a product inventor.

Pierce says, “Binka Bear is one of those things that I think I was just meant to do. The idea came to me when I was trying to wean my oldest from the pacifier. I had no idea how to get the pacifiers she loved so much away from her at almost 3 years old. We found a fun idea of putting them in a stuffed toy and the wheels began turning. It worked so well for us I knew if I could make it a process and a product it could help so many other families. ”

Though, while Kaitlyn Pierce knew how life changing Binka Bear could be for other families, she had absolutely no clue how to move from idea into manufacturing a real product.

She says, “I had no idea how to even begin so I didn’t. Not for another 18 months.” Then, on Thanksgiving night of 2017, she couldn’t keep the idea to rest any longer. Pierce says, “From there it never stopped growing and developing!” Now, Pierce has living proof of her idea.  Boxes of bears are sitting in her home, waiting to be matched with their future children. Her dream became a reality. Now, one small idea that helped her child is able to help children all over the country.

Regardless of the bumps in the road Pierce has faced, she’s still confident that dropping out of school to manage her anxiety was the best decision for her. “I’m grateful to not have the student debt so many of my friends have. Not having a degree has made certain things more challenging.  But, it’s been the path that was best for me.  And, I’ve spent a lot of time educating myself in other ways.”