The Ice Cream Business “Cosmic Bliss” is like a fairy tale. It’s not only unique for its surreal business name but much more from the brand’s business story.
Starting as Coconut Bliss in 2005, Larry and Luna’s Ice Cream business is the story of how a second-hand ice cream maker, purchased from a thrift store, turned a $1.50 investment into a multi-million dollar business.
What started with the couple making pure organic coconut for themselves for health concerns, extended to friends and family as taste parties hosted by the couple.
Later this business would move its operations base to the benevolence of a friend’s trailer, rapidly growing into the perfect treat for community parties, and soon went into stores in Eugene, Oregon in the USA.
As more and more demands came for Coconut Bliss, Larry and Luna proceeded to raise capital from family and friends to the tune of $75,000. These funds went into getting a new apartment with a better kitchen, for a more seamless coconut ice cream production.
As the business continued to scale rapidly, so did their revenue, and so did the interest from larger brands to buy the company over.
In 2009, Coconut Bliss founding owners and couple sold the company to Kim Gibson Clark. At that time the company was generating an estimate of 4 million dollars according to oregonbusiness.com.
In 2020, HealthCo acquired the business from Kim Gibson Clark as the company’s largest stakeholder, although the total cost of the acquisition was not made public, a rough estimate of the company’s annual revenue was valued at up to 25 million dollars.
IS THIS THE TYPICAL BUSINESS STORY?
I’d say no. In my opinion, I prefer approaching a new business head-on without being overly excited about what the business experiences would turn out to be.
It’s important to intentionally dampen your excitement, not necessarily by becoming anti-optimistic, but with clear foreknowledge of what a typical business journey looks like.
Therefore, the force that should drive good business goals should not rest solely on summarised business stories and revenue reports, but on the truth about how typical business operations and strategic management runs.
WHAT A TYPICAL BUSINESS LOOKS LIKE.
A typical business looks like many dark days and good days before the big figures.
After selling the business to Kim, Larry became an angel investor. At a startup conference, he was asked if entrepreneurs experienced dark days. His response according to Tim Berry, bplans.com, was,
“Somebody asked Larry if there were ever those dark days that entrepreneurs suffer through as the company grew. He answered, with a quick broad smile, “just about every day from one and a half years in through four years.” The group laughed.”
This quote should make you wonder, where are the stories of the “dark days” in published revenues and success stories? Nobody cares to mention that the business journey has its twists and turns that make every day a new blessing and a challenge.
Even if stories of challenges are not written and celebrated, they are in every business journey, so it’s good to expect them.
But what’s most important is for every challenge, you have access to help your business leverage healthy support from a professional business community.
If you don’t have a support community, you can join ours.
This is necessary for business success.
THE THREE KEY NEEDS OF EVERY BUSINESS FOR MAKING MORE MONEY.
1. The Key To Scaling – when scaling and meeting new demands of business requires bigger cash flow.
Are you curious about why Larry and Luna sold their family business to Kim in 2009? The answer is that they didn’t have the funds to match the business demands.
Funding and access to funding are critical factors in business growth, and it doesn’t matter whether you’re just starting out or if you have been in the business for a long while.
Business financing always requires the infusion of cash for either short-term projects or long-term business goals. Most importantly, it’s important that your business gets access to funding sources. A wrong funding source may put your business in jeopardy.
Funding opportunities will be one of the discussions when you join our community here.
2. Key To Proven Business Viability – where presenting your business as viable for investments requires the provision of accurate and trustworthy data.
A business is viable and worthy of investment if it passes healthy-business checks.
For example, the state of your accounting and bookkeeping needs to be checked and balanced. But how do you embark on this if you do not keep the records, or when you have not been preparing simple accounts for your income and expenses?
If you conduct a business health check, you might be surprised at the results that will be generated, yet, you would be able to use the data to make future-oriented decisions that would improve your profit margins, and help your business grow.
3. The Key to Financial Transparency and Financial Firewall – where transparency requires that your business adheres to statutory regulations and laws; and your designed firewalls serve as protection against financial fraud.
If you do not pay attention to paying taxes and remitting other statutory deductions, you’d be putting your business up for massive financial obligations in the future when the law catches up with it.
When you engage in forensic audits for your business, you’d have a clear understanding of loopholes that might lead to financial manipulation within your company or outside your company.
In subsequent editions, look out for articles that address core areas of business management to further help your business.
You can contact us here. Or send questions to support@streetsmartlab.com. Also, comments can be shared in the comment section.
I am Adeyiga Awomuti; towards the smartest you.
