We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Alexis Matteson. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Alexis below.
Hi Alexis, we’re so appreciative of you taking the time to share your nuggets of wisdom with our community. One of the topics we think is most important for folks looking to level up their lives is building up their self-confidence and self-esteem. Can you share how you developed your confidence?
As far as I can tell, my self-esteem has been built up overtime in direct relation to achievement. The more we’ve been able to bring into fruition our vision as a company, after lots of hard work, the more confident I’ve become. I think a common misconception is that confidence or self-esteem is something everyone should simply strive to have. Instead, I believe it is earned through hard work and accomplishment.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
My partner and I founded Milk & Froth on the premise that people deserve to have more honest and inspired ice cream. In particular, in Detroit, MI where the ice cream options were especially limited. What we found, and what ultimately led us down this path, was that almost every ice cream shop in the country that claimed to be making their own ice cream was actually purchasing a pre-made ice cream mix that contained chemical stabilizers and emulsifiers along with the set amounts of milk, cream, and sugar, that they would then add liquid artificial flavorings to. Not only does every flavor they make have the same base recipe, and thus taste extremely similar, but we also found that most ice cream shops purchase from the same mix manufacturer and therefore have essentially the exact same ice cream as one another. We were astonished to find out this truth about the industry and figured that ice cream would probably be much better if it were made, like anything else, to spec. That means that our approach to ice cream has been to build a recipe around whatever flavor we are trying to make. Some flavors require egg yolks while others are better without, some take more sugar while others take less and are naturally sweetened with produce or honey, etc. We have full control over each and every flavor and take pride in making the best recipes possible.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Learning all the ins and outs of our particular product, taking a more startup oriented view on our business, and building strong connections in our community have all been extremely impactful in our journey. I would advise anyone early in their journey to go really deep into the details of their given product or service. Expertise and excellence will outshine any fakers or gimmicks over time.
What is the number one obstacle or challenge you are currently facing and what are you doing to try to resolve or overcome this challenge?
The big challenge we’re currently working to overcome is that in order to grow our business, my partner Deion and I will need to step back from making all of the ice cream ourselves, and devote our attention in other directions however we aren’t quite ready financially to handover ice cream production. We’re at a sort of in between phase of working in and on the business, but mostly in it. We’re making ice cream for about 60 hours a week, but also trying to grow the business so we can soon afford to bring in a team to expand production.
Contact Info:
- Website: milkandfroth.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/milkandfrothicecream
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexislmatteson/
Image Credits
handcar.co
