Two five-year old boys met on a school bus while attending Jamestown Elementary. Close to twenty years later those same boys are the Co-founders, as well as the CEO and COO of Protein Pints.
Paul Reiss and Michael Meadows did not just blink and become successful entrepreneurs. They did not make a deal on Shark Tank or stumble upon a big inheritance. Nor did they have personal connections in the industry.
There were several factors that—when fueled by their drive to succeed—led them from inventing a protein ice cream in 2022, to now having their product in almost 8000 stores.
I sat down with Co-founder and CEO Paul Reiss who shared some of the key contributions to their success.
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Reiss said growing up in Hudsonville definitely played a role in where they are today. His dad was always problem solving and working with his hands, as was his grandpa who worked on cars. “I think that's part of being in a farm town, rural area. It’s kind of like a do-it-yourself, get-it-done, problem-solving mentality.” Reiss said the influence of that upbringing really has benefited the two of them.
In 2022, when both Reiss and Meadows were enrolled in Michigan State University’s Entrepreneurship program, the idea for Protein Pints was born.
What interested them was creating something with value for people. “There are a lot of ways to make money,” Reiss said. “For me, my interest was health and fitness. I was a college athlete… and Protein Pints was born out of that desire to help people through health and fitness.”
People often ask them how they got started, thinking that to start a business they would need tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. ”You really don’t,” Reiss said.
“Michael and I started with almost zero dollars in our bank account. We started making the ice cream at home and then going out and sampling it.”
The sampling is what led to the taste and texture Protein Pints has today. Everything has been about trial and error. “We probably handed out over 10,000 samples in the past two years in West Michigan alone,” Reiss said. He and Meadows would collect feedback at different events and go back to the drawing board and tweak. Then they would go back out and do it all over again.
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So, what exactly does a drawing board at Protein Pints look like? A lot of taste testing. Reiss and Meadows would bring the feedback to Chris McKellar—their Chief Innovator and the owner and founder of Love’s Ice Cream & Chocolate—who would work on the recipes until he was ready for them to taste again.
Reiss emphasized the importance of getting feedback from the community. A mistake he has seen a lot of first-time founders make is that they come up with an idea but then don't get feedback. Instead they invest all of their time, money, and resources into an idea that isn't proven.
Reiss and Meadows spent over two years getting thousands of feedback responses and doing customer research interviews. And Reiss would highly recommend that to anybody.
"Make sure it's a winning and successful idea before you go and bet the farm on it.”
And where did Reiss and Meadows go to find all the feedback they received? Because Protein Pints is a health and fitness product, they went to races—like triathlons and marathons. They also brought samples to gyms, sporting events, and even farmers markets—places their targeted consumer would be.
Besides fine-tuning recipes, one other change they made along the way was their price point. Initially their pints contained 45 grams of protein and came in at $10.99. They have since adjusted that to 30 grams of protein, and now the pints typically cost $6.99.
Reiss explained that they’re currently a dollar or two more expensive than the other ice creams on the shelf but are also the only ice cream packing 30 grams of protein into a pint. Along with all of that protein are good, quality ingredients that have been carefully chosen. Envisioned as an “after work-out” fortifier, Reiss and Meadows have sought optimal ingredients with consideration towards consumers’ health goals.
Most of that 30 grams of protein comes from whey protein that is sourced from Midwestern dairy farms. The rest of the protein is derived from the milk, egg yolk, and cocoa. There are no artificial colors, dyes or ingredients, and any coloring comes from beetroot, spirulina, and beta carotene.
And get this, Protein Pints has an average of 85% less sugar than most ice cream because the pints are sweetened with allulose, monk fruit, and some tapioca syrup instead of sugar (sucrose).
Current flavors include chocolate, strawberry, peanut butter, cookies and cream, and chocolate mint.
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In addition to the quality of the product, the support of mentors also has contributed to Protein Pints' success. Reiss said they have had so many mentors along the way, hundreds. The most incremental was the mentoring received from Start Garden and MSU, which has “an incredible entrepreneurship program."
Another one of their mentors is their Chief Innovator, Chris McKellar, who, besides refining the recipes, has put a lot of time and effort into building their strong supplier relationships and connections.
Competitions have been a boost to their success as well. Last year Protein Pints took the grand prize at the Rice Business Plan Competition against top student ventures from top universities across the world. That competition put them in front of venture capital and corporate investors. Additionally, they won the Ivey Business Plan Competition and scored top ranking in eleven other competitions. The full list can be seen on Reiss’s LinkedIn profile.
Looking back, Reiss said one area they wish they would have done differently was in how they got their story out. “When we first started, we didn't do a lot of sharing of the story. And as it turns out, a lot of people are interested in hearing about that. So, I think if I could go back, I would probably publicize what we were doing a little bit more and try to share that more with the community."
One final factor to Protein Pints' success was in choosing the right business partners. Not only are Reiss and Meadows best friends, but they have complementing skills that make the partnership work.
“Michael is really good at the operations side of things," Reiss said. "He allows me to go off and find the next opportunity to work on while he kind of holds down the business, does what needs to get done today. I think that's been crucial. For example, Michael would be making the ice cream for us, while I would be out winning a pitch competition—trying to get us more venture funding so we could expand our business operations.”
All to say, their success has been no luck of the draw.
Protein Pints was built upon an upbringing in problem solving, supportive educational programs, outstanding mentors, competition opportunities, dedicated, boots-on-the-ground research, sought after and valued feedback, tenacious work ethic, solid partnership, and a desire to create the best product they can.
It's been a long time since Reiss and Meadows were two boys eating Hudsonville ice cream at the Little Dipper in Jamestown. Now they’re eating ice cream every day.
When asked his favorite flavor so far, Reiss said it depends on the day, adding he’d just eaten a peanut butter pint for breakfast. For them, creating an ice cream so healthy they can eat it all the time, ranks right up there with already achieving distribution into almost 8,000 stores—with big accounts across the country including Meijer, Kroger, Target, HEB, and Sprouts.
“And of course we want to keep expanding.”
Be watching this fall. Two new flavors are set to hit the freezer section.
Krista Yetzke is a native of Ottawa County. A jeep-driving, guitar-playing wife, mom, and everyday adventurer, Krista was raised on the love of Jesus, the great outdoors, the arts, the value of frugality, and the beauty of food as medicine.
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