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Shawn Allard is the owner of Novel Ice Cream, a multi-location ice cream shop in Phoenix known for its inventive flavors and standout branding. After starting his career in dental consultancy, Shawn knew he wanted to find a more entrepreneurial path. He discovered the entrepreneurship through acquisition (EtA) world on Twitter. Within a year, he acquired Novel Ice Cream, then a two-unit operation in Phoenix.
In this episode, we dive into how Shawn transitioned to small business ownership, the due diligence behind his first acquisition, and the operational lessons he's learned while expanding to three storefronts and a mobile unit.
Some takeaways:
Decide if you’re an owner or investor - it changes the size you should acquire. Shawn distinguishes between buying a “mom-and-pop” shop you’ll run vs. a larger, manager-run business. The former is more realistic for most buyers, but it requires daily involvement and at least a few years of hands-on work.
Product quality & customer experience. Shawn highlights these two aspects as must-have in the food & beverage space. Your product needs to be better than the competition and you need to wow your customers. For Novel Ice Cream, this is everything from the experience walking up to the shop to the lighting inside to the way the team speaks to customers.
Consumer psychology matters. What we think looks amazing tends to be amazing, even if that’s not factually true in a blind test. Shawn applies this consumer psych insight to Novel Ice Cream by being relentless on nailing presentation. How the ice cream is served affects how consumers feel about it (and their likelihood to post/share about it).
Promote managers from within. In late 2024, Shawn let go of his formal management team to promote experienced in-store staff. It was both a cost control move and a bet on people who had already proved themselves.
Compensation challenges for store managers. As a store manager, there’s not much you can control in terms of revenue or expenses. The labor, rent and food costs are baked in. As an owner, you don’t want to incentivize a store manager to be relentless about pushing upsells or more ice cream on customers. What matters most is leadership, management and quality control of the store’s staff, but that’s hard to compensate on.
6-7 units allow you to hire a true regional manager. Given the average revenue and margins of an ice cream shop, below 6-7 units and the owner is typically pulling double duty as “CEO” and regional manager. For Novel Ice Cream, they need about 2 more locations before Shawn can hire a manager responsible for all of the locations.
Where to find Shawn & Novel Ice Cream:
LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/shawnwallard
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/novelicecream
Website: https://www.novelicecream.com/
In this interview, we discuss:
0:00 Intro to Shawn Allard
1:16 Discovering ETA through Twitter
2:16 Why He Bought Novel Ice Cream
3:12 First-Time Diligence Mistakes
4:16 Preparing for Ownership Post-Close
5:12 Expanding from 2 to 4 Locations
7:19 Production Setup: Donuts & Ice Cream
8:34 Product Quality & Customer Experience
10:27 How They Test and Launch New Flavors
11:46 Advice for Buying Ice Cream Shops
13:07 Should You Buy Big or Small?
14:07 What is ParkSMB?
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