Ice Pops Made with a Blender in a College Dorm, Started on $4,000: In Memory of a Cousin, Two Minnesota Students Built a Brand With About $100M in Annual Sales in 13 Years

Process

To be clear up front: JonnyPops didn't start with one to three people. The founding team was four first-year students at St. Olaf College plus a friend at another university. Beyond $4,000 in job savings, they later used friends-and-family money, and in 2015 they completed a $600,000 equity round. Today it's a consumer goods company with its own factory and more than a hundred employees. It's included because its start was so small, a blender, a dorm room and an ice cream machine in a borrowed kitchen, and because in 13 years it has never taken private equity money.

Stage 1: An Idea at a Wedding, and the Person Who Never Got to Build It

At a family wedding in 2007, Erik Brust got talking with his cousin Jonathan Jeffrey, known to everyone as Jonny.

They realized they both loved ice pops but didn't trust the ingredient lists on the big supermarket brands. What if they made their own pop brand, a healthier one with a social conscience? At the time, it was just a fun idea.

In 2010, Jonny died after a struggle with addiction.

That same year, Erik was a first-year student at St. Olaf College in Minnesota. He met Connor Wray in a physics class. According to a 2012 St. Olaf news story, Erik, Connor and classmates Andrew Sather and Kilian Wald bonded through an investment club they formed as first-years, decided in 2010 to start a business together, and were later joined by their friend Spencer Uttley of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Erik hadn't forgotten the conversation at the wedding. He decided to make his cousin's dream real, named the brand JonnyPops, and pledged a portion of the profits to the Hazelden Foundation, a Minnesota addiction treatment center.

Stage 2: A Dorm Blender and a $4,000 Machine

They started out making "frozen smoothies on a stick" in the dorm with a blender, strawberries and cream. According to Forbes, their recipe had less than half the sugar and fat of traditional ice cream pops.

Money was tight. They spent $4,000 saved from high school jobs on a stainless steel ice cream machine from Brazil to make pops on a countertop. With no factory of their own, they borrowed the commercial kitchen of a wedding banquet hall in town, the Grand Event Center, to make and store pops on weekdays, and sold them at farmers markets and other local venues on weekends.

The students worked full-time on their business plan during the college's January term. They worked with a professional chef to refine the recipes and adopted the slogan "All Natural. All Delicious. No Artificial Anything." In season, all of their raspberries and strawberries came from Lorence's Berry Farm in Northfield, the town where the college sits.

After getting FDA certification, JonnyPops went on sale on April 2, 2012, first at the campus coffee shop, the Cage, and at Hogan Brothers, a café in town. Their machine could make up to 5,000 pops a day, far more than demand at the time.

Erik said he had "worn many different hats" to get the business going, learning everything from marketing and sales to finance and production.

Stage 3: A Kind Deed on Every Stick

JonnyPops has one distinctive touch: every stick is printed with a small kind deed, like holding the door for someone, sharing a smile or sitting with someone new at lunch.

The company website says it's in honor of Jonathan. The brand's motto is "A Better Pop for A Better World," and each year it donates a portion of profits to organizations that support addiction recovery.

The idea gave the pops a story and something to talk about. When kids finish a pop, they check the stick to see what good deed to do that day.

Stage 4: Growing Slowly, 3 Million Pops in 2015

They didn't bet big all at once. Erik later told Forbes they tried to make methodical investments rather than spend a fortune on one big bet and hope it worked, building up gradually year after year.

For the first two years, the founders ran the business while finishing college. By May 2015, according to Twin Cities Business, JonnyPops was selling 3 million pops a year in 2,500 locations, including nearly every grocery chain in Minnesota as well as stores in Chicago, Texas and on the West Coast, and had just signed a deal with Costco. The company had recently completed a $600,000 equity raise for an undisclosed stake.

"In five years, we want to be a national brand in every grocery store like Ben & Jerry's or Häagen-Dazs," Erik said then. "But we want to remain true to our core values." Jamie Marshall, the co-founder running marketing, said being young helped: "People see we're young and try the product to support us. And then they realize what we offer actually tastes really good."

In November 2017, Erik and Connor, both 25, were named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Food & Drink list. Forbes described their product as "smoothies-on-a-stick."

Stage 5: In Big Retailers, but Only $5 Million in Sales

By 2018, JonnyPops was in Kroger, Target, Walmart and Costco. It sounded impressive, but Forbes estimates sales that year were only about $5 million.

Being on the shelf didn't mean the product was selling. The pair decided to change it: instead of creamy smoothie pops, they switched to ice pops with nothing artificial and no high-fructose corn syrup.

The switch worked. According to Forbes, in the five years after it, sales grew by triple digits every year, reaching an estimated $50 million in 2021.

Stage 6: Building Their Own Machines and Factory

As the business grew, they ran into a hard problem: making pops with layers of different flavors, without fillers or gums, at scale. Their big competitors' equipment hadn't really changed since the 1980s.

They decided to start from scratch, designing their own equipment and manufacturing everything themselves. JonnyPops now holds 20 patents and trademarks. Erik says everyone else uses old equipment to make the same things; they want to make things no one has seen before.

In 2021, the company opened an 80,000-square-foot factory in Elk River, Minnesota. David Finch, a food industry veteran who met them as students while running a Minnesota contract manufacturer and later became their adviser, investor and board member, said they quickly realized their way of making pops was unique, so controlling production was essential.

Stage 7: $100 Million, and "Never a Grow-to-Sell Idea"

In June 2025, Forbes estimated JonnyPops' annual sales at about $100 million, with roughly 60% coming in the hottest six months of the year. "The energy of the summer is contagious," said Erik, the 32-year-old CEO. "This is our Super Bowl, and it just happens to be multiple months long."

The company doesn't publish financials, but Erik says it has been profitable since its first year, with an estimated net margin of about 30%. According to grocery data provider SPINS, JonnyPops is the top-selling frozen novelty brand in natural grocery stores nationwide. It makes about 30 varieties, each with five ingredients or fewer, and is sold in 27,000 stores, including Target (with exclusive lines), HEB, Publix, Wegmans and Whole Foods.

Forbes estimates JonnyPops could be worth $300 million or more if it sold. But Erik says the company, bootstrapped with friends and family and never backed by private equity, "was never a grow the business to sell it type idea." "We don't chase fads. We're thinking about what's the next decade look like."

Growth has also brought controversy. In summer 2024, competitor GoodPop filed a class action lawsuit claiming JonnyPops has too much sugar and isn't as healthy as it says. JonnyPops, which uses cane sugar, declined to comment on the litigation.

There's still plenty of room to grow: about 60% of US grocery stores have yet to sell a single JonnyPops pop.

Thinking

1. An emotional origin can take a brand further. JonnyPops isn't just a pop; behind it is a story about a cousin, and the kind deed on every stick invites every customer to take part. That kind of emotional connection is hard to copy.

2. Start small and validate demand with as little money as possible. A $4,000 machine, a borrowed kitchen, weekend farmers markets. They didn't build a factory first; they proved people would buy, then grew step by step.

3. Getting into big retailers isn't the same as success. By 2018 they were in four major retailers, yet sales were only about $5 million. What drove growth was changing the product, from smoothie pops to the ice pops people wanted more. Distribution is an opportunity; the product decides whether it sells.

4. Owning production lets you make what others can't. Self-designed equipment and their own factory let them make layered pops and earned them 20 patents and trademarks, an advantage big competitors struggle to copy.

5. Growing slowly can still be very profitable. According to Erik, the company has been profitable since year one, with a net margin of about 30%. Not chasing rapid expansion or a quick sale let them work at their own pace.

6. A health positioning invites scrutiny. "Healthier pops" is a selling point and also a target. GoodPop's lawsuit is a reminder that marketing must match the product; the faster you grow, the more questions you'll face.

Action

1. Find the reason you truly care about. Think about why you want to do this. A sincere story moves customers more than any ad copy.

2. Make your first batch with minimal investment. Borrow existing kitchens, equipment and spaces, make something sellable, and test it at farmers markets, on campus or in local shops.

3. Start local, then expand slowly. Win where you know people first, landing local cafés and grocers, before going after more distant cities and bigger retailers.

4. If the numbers are wrong, change the product. If your product is on shelves but not selling, don't just blame distribution. Look hard at what customers want, and if necessary change the recipe or format entirely.

5. Turn a small detail into a brand signature. Like the kind deed on the stick, find a small touch customers see every time and want to share.

6. Keep your marketing consistent with your product. When you sell on "healthy" or "natural," make sure your recipe can stand up to scrutiny, so overstated claims don't get you in trouble.