The Thrill of the Start-Up

Everything I need to know… I learned in kindergarten,” wrote author Robert Fulcrum. For Amanda Klane and Drew Harrington, those vital lessons included getting to know your fellow five-year-olds. Fast forward 18 years, and the two former kindergarten classmates would together found Yasso Frozen Greek Yogurt (www.yasso.com). The fast-growing frozen yogurt brand has rocketed from concept to a line of 11 frozen Greek yogurt bar flavors selling at more than 14,000 retail locations in just five years.

All of this success became possible through the combination of shrewd market instincts, core values, teamwork, and passionate and intense dedication to making their idea succeed.

Food Prep School
Passion, teamwork and intensity were the easy part. Back in Easton, Mass., where they grew up, Klane and Harrington were star athletes: Klane excelled as an All-State soccer player, while Harrington set a 4:15 mile record on the track, and each led their teams as Captain. Both were determined to fuel their well-trained bodies with healthful food and they moved on to Division 1 programs.

Fast-forward six years, with college studies in business management under their belts. Harrington was working in construction management and had successfully launched his first start-up, Poolside Pong — inflatable beer pong! — selling in stores nationwide and on the web. Following a post-college year playing soccer in Australia, Klane joined her father’s frozen and dairy food brokerage business as a sales rep. Here, she began to learn the food industry and develop relationships with retailers.

“It was my job to help determine the best retail strategy that worked with each individual brand,” says Klane. That taught her valuable skills in thinking strategically about brand building.

This experience helped Klane spot an opportunity in the rapidly growing Greek yogurt category, a health and wellness trend overtaking the food marketplace. There were plenty of new Greek yogurt brands coming on the market, but no frozen versions. The Greek yogurt trend itself had been launched by two previously unknown brands, Chobani and Fage. So, why not lead the way into frozen Greek yogurt treats?

In 2009, Klane sought out her childhood friend, Harrington, whom she knew had complementary skills and similar values, to explore turning an idea into a company, which they soon dubbed Apollo Food Group, LLC (later to be renamed Yasso Inc.).

“We knew there was a great opportunity in the frozen space for us if we moved quickly,” says Harrington. “We worked very hard to build our product and brand in a short span of time. From day one, we were focused on taste and quality — we wanted to give our fans a product that tasted delicious that was made with only natural ingredients, and provide them with a nutritious product they could enjoy every day.”

Even before they started trying to turn their idea into a reality, the two agreed on four basic principles that would underpin the new company: Offer premium quality, great taste, convenience and a product that would work for the whole family.

So… How Do You Make Ice Cream?
Their plan looked great on paper. But now, the two newly minted partners needed an actual product. And a name. And a manufacturing partner. And a supply chain, a marketing strategy and some money. And one more thing: They needed to know something about making ice cream.

“Google was our best friend,” says Klane. Searching online led them to a one-week Ice Cream Camp at Penn State, where they couldn’t afford two full entries so they registered under one badge name, Drew, and switched off the days they attended! Utilizing Google also led them to the names of several food scientists and a freelance package designer. A series of failed attempts in a home kitchen — and some willing friends and family who provided honest feedback — eventually led the pair to the doors of The University of Nebraska, where they arrived at a winning product formula. They chose an easy-to-eat frozen bar on a stick for their first product, to fit their convenience principle, and decided to price it for the mass market to make it family-friendly.

Yasso’s first line of bars offered three fruit flavors. In addition to using real Greek yogurt, the first frozen treat in the United States to do so, they also differentiated by using natural ingredients, no artificial sweeteners, and rBST-free milk. Yasso Frozen Greek Yogurt Bars are also low fat, gluten-free, certified kosher and contain just 80 calories.

It was a former co-worker of Harrington’s at the construction company who suggested the Greek word “Yassou” (Hello) for the product name, and a graphic artist who chopped off the “u” to make the word sound less ethnic and better suited to eventually cross categories away from Greek yogurt-based fare.

Now that they had a formula, and a name, they needed a way to make it. Food scientists told Klane and Harrington early on that Greek yogurt was too thick to freeze. So they needed a co-packer with the technical chops to make it happen.

Looking for a Manufacturing Partner
Back to Google again. Without the funds available to build their own factory, they came up with a list of potential co-packers, and impressed a factory on the East Coast enough to give them a shot. Now they had to come up with more than $100,000 to buy the ingredients and fund the first production runs.

“We’ve always been very boot-strapped financially in our approach,” says Harrington. “When we were launching Yasso, a lot of people put their faith and trust in us. We’ll never forget that. At some point, you have to be ready to go for it and take the chance — the time came for us in the Fall of 2010. We haven’t really looked back since.”

Without the budget for a big marketing and advertising campaign, they knew the packaging would have to do a lot of the selling. All-natural ingredients and real Greek yogurt would be key selling points. They went through several rounds of revisions to make sure the box was different and eye catching, calling out those key characteristics.

Now they had everything they needed… except customers. So, they brought in Amanda Klane’s Dad, Stu Klane, and he started making the rounds in the Northeast.

“Retailers gave us a shot, and once it got on shelf, it started to sell,” says Klane.

But, not by itself. In between retailer pitches, the trio hit the stores, working the aisles to give away free samples. Word of mouth began to spread, and soon Yasso started getting media attention. Joy Bauer picked up a package at Stew Leonard’s in Connecticut, and talked about Yasso on The Today Show. Dr. Oz also featured their product on air. The momentum began to build — heady stuff for a start-up going up against big brand names in a highly contested category.

“We started out with an extremely limited budget, and like most growing companies, only a small portion of that could be dedicated to consumer marketing,” Harrington says. “Word of mouth was, and will always be, an important component of Yasso’s marketing. Our first fans of the brand were our friends and family, and through them we learned that it’s really the first taste that gets consumers hooked. Our story is very much, and continues to be, a David versus Goliath, so we try to be resourceful and efficient in our strategy and execution.”

Yasso began hiring, and sent two staffers across the country in a Yasso-branded sampling truck to win fans over one by one while supporting their retail partners.

Pumping up the Volume
Despite the early wins, Yasso’s budding staff was still working out of an old apartment-turned-office, tracking inventory on Post-it notes and spending all their time pitching, working product giveaways and supporting their co-packers and retailers. Things shifted at a meeting of the National Frozen & Refrigerated Foods Association, where they took part in speed pitches to a multitude of retailers.

“It was a pivotal point, where we could grow fast or slow,” says Klane. “As athletes, we know nothing but go out as fast and hard as you can,” so they chose the former, quickly adding more retail accounts and more production capabilities.

“Retailers could see that we were willing to work with them, which set us apart and built trust early on,” says Klane.

They also staffed up in earnest, adding expertise in sales, finance, marketing, operations and customer service, including a full-time product developer. Today, Klane and Harrington serve as co-founders and co-CEOs, with Klane managing the operational side of the business to ensure that the quality and availability of Yasso products is always on track, and working with the sales team to monitor and maintain sales forecasts. Harrington oversees branding, packaging and messaging, working closely with the marketing and creative teams to promote brand awareness.

Yasso’s co-founders see the retailer relationships they’ve forged as key to their ongoing success, acting as their conduit to the market and helping them weather the competition from the major frozen novelties companies who have followed Yasso’s lead with their own Greek yogurt confections. One necessity in those relationships is keeping the product coming.

“We strive to impress the retailers giving us a chance and not disappoint them,” says Klane. “So our motto is, ‘Thou shalt not run out of product’. This helps keep the relationships positive and does not put them in a bad spot at store level.”

Marketing on a Shoestring
Competitors boast massive marketing budgets compared with what Yasso can afford, so the company continues its grassroots approach. The whole team works together to create direct relationships with media, racking up mentions in a plethora of popular magazines, web sites and industry publications, and they continue free sampling to support retailer events. Social media is a key facilitator of direct relationships with Yasso fans, which have expanded well beyond their initial coterie of friends and family to include customers and celebrities. Friends and followers are often offered free Yasso merchandise — and a chance to help shape new products.

“We’re consistently innovating new products, and the team here at Yasso carefully tracks what flavors our fans are asking for; what trends consumers are navigating toward,” says Harrington. “We put a lot of thought into what we decide to launch and try our best to make it a success. We continue to engage our fans in those conversations so they can help guide where we take the brand.”

This year, Yasso is taking a step into the indulgence category, with five new flavors: Mint Chocolate Chip, Dark Chocolate Raspberry, Sea Salt Caramel, Chocolate Fudge, and Peanut Butter Cup, all with the same healthy characteristics of the fruit flavor line, which now has six flavors.

“We’re nimble,” says Klane. “If we want to launch a new product, we can develop it and market it way faster than the big guys because we’re a much smaller organization. Our new flavors for 2014 were all heavily requested, so we know we’re making something that people are looking for in their freezer aisle.”

That strength has allowed Yasso to respond to specific retailer requests, such as a smoothie product that was marketed for a time in warehouse clubs. Future plans include adjacent products, such as push-ups or sandwiches, and longer term, perhaps even products outside the Greek yogurt category.

“We found that the diversity of our flavor offerings is a key element of growing our fan base, and because of this, we listen closely to what our fans want,” Klane says.

Both Klane and Harrington concede that along with the successes come some hard-earned lessons, the result not only of playing in a competitive market with a high barrier for entry, but also in establishing a completely new product category.

“We wouldn’t change much of anything that has happened,” says Harrington. “It’s all about the journey and what you learn along the way that makes you smarter and stronger. We take great pride in the people we’ve surrounded ourselves with and the team we’ve built here. As a team, we roll up our sleeves everyday with the goal of creating something truly unique that we can be proud of. Yasso has been so much fun to grow and we look forward to the road ahead.”