Daniel Goitz spent several late nights as a college’s senior cuttings and fresh fruits, and freeze them into popsicals to sell customers near the University of Texas at Austin.
The advertisement chief fell in love with Mexican Ice Pops, called Palatus, while visiting Mexico City with his college girlfriend. Inspired, Goitz made fun of potential brand names and doodling logo during a class in 2009. He landed in the name “Goodpop”.
Today, the Austin-based organic popsical and ice cream bar company’s frozen desserts are sold at more than 10,000 places across the US, including Costco, Walmart and Hole Foods Market. According to documents reviewed by CNBC Make, GaoodPop brought more than $ 63 million in gross sales in 2024. Goetz says, it is never taken external money.
Goodpop has been profitable since its launch almost every year, as an exception with 2024. A spokesperson of the company says it will not be profitable in 2025, which is expected to return to profitability after the winding of an unlopted product line, but in 2026.
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Goatz, still the CEO of the company, created a goodpop with very little experience or industry expertise. He “did not know anything” about the supply chains or consumer packed goods market, he says, and spent years “a lot of driving … is running around the entire Texas, delivery.”
He said that after graduation, he spent his first four years after being “fare -free” on the couch around Austin, so that he could save money while trying to make a goodpop, he says. He cut the fruit and allows 80 popsicals per hour, by hand, in a local palteria, which allows him to use its kitchen after hours.
“I just knew that we had a delicious pop with less sugar, real fruits, and there was nothing like this on the market,” 38 -year -old goatz says: “Any opportunity that I could put these products in front of autinites to present them and see if we were on something.”
A ‘cooled, dirty’ initial accident for Goodpop
Goetz’s family has a history of entrepreneurship: his great -grandfather came to America from Russia a century ago and “sold ice out of a pushkart,” he says. That great -grandfather then established a grocery supply business in Houston in 1923, which increased in an operation Multi-dollar annual revenue By the time Goetz’s family sold his interest in 2014.
Goetz says, “I am very lucky to grow up in the family of entrepreneurs. But, at the same time, I knew that I needed to make my own mark on this world and do so on my own.”
With Goodpop, he spent $ 3,500-by that he had saved a lawn-meing business started at the middle school-on singing, to produce and produce to make and sell his own pushcarts and his first popsicals.
He said he sold him for $ 2 in local music festivals and farmer markets, bought more materials with his income, and spent three weeks to make 18,000 popsicals to sell at the annual Austin City Limits Music Festival in October 2009.
rain again The festival turned into a “mud festival”, He says. “it [was] A cold, dirty mess … and out of those 18,000 platforms, we sold four. I thought it’s going to be kickstart [the business] And change everything, and we were left with 17,996 pop which I had to find out what to do and [almost] There is no money. “
Goetz took Popsicals to a cold storage facility, paid them $ 50 per month to store them and returned to school, “he said. A few months later, he cut off his loss and handed him over free at Austin’s annual SXSW Festival.
Long and total tiredness to create a business
After graduating in college, Goitz Goodpop could not shake the idea, they say. But the only remaining piece of the company was its website – so Goitz kept its marketing skills to work, making the site’s search engine optimization (SEO) maximized. Soon, “When you discovered organic frozen platforms or organic popsicals, because no one was present at that time, Goodpop was actually the number 1 result,” he says.
A week later, a marketing agency called Manifold asked the Goodpop for a price quote for 50,000 organic popsicals with custom packaging. Goetz made a bid and won it: Manifold paid him $ 80,000 for the job, giving him half the money to cover his production cost.
“I pressed each pop stick by hand,” goes.
The second half of the payment was the net profit for Goetz, which kept the Goodpop back into the business. Luck similarly gave Gudpop its first major retail partner: Goitz’s roommate played entertaining football with an entire foods employee, who kept him in touch with a representative of the south -west regional office of the grocery series.
In Daniel Goatz 2012, a complete food item market is next to a Goodpop display.
Source: Goodpop
Goetz brought some samples and received the approval of the representative to pitch buyers at individual hole foods stores. As he conquered buyers – building relationships and shaking hands, he says – he stayed late to make popsicals on the couch of four years, and got them up early to deliver the entire food items and other, small grocery stores by 6 am.
Goetz says, “I covered a distance of 212,000 miles on my Toyota, running around the whole of Texas, delivery for years, saying,” The dedication on the hands often left him “completely finished.”
By 2014, Goodpop’s products sold sufficiently to handle distribution to the south -west and Rocky mountain areas for complete foods, which means that Goetz was no longer delivered. That year, the Goodpop brought in GDP in $ 1.3 million in gross sales, the company says.
In 2017, Hole Foods expanded the Goodpop for national distribution. The brand was found in Walmart and CostCo the following year.
‘Dubling’ amidst big competition
US popsical market was valued Over $ 1.3 billion In 2024, according to an estimate from cognitive market research. This makes a small player in the market dominated by the goods legends packed to the Goodpop: Unilever, the world’s largest ice cream producer, brought. More than $ 9.5 billion Revenue from frozen sweets brands such as Magnum, Ben and Jerry and original popsical in 2024.
Even the plant-based, between the real-fruit frozen desserts, the Gudpop Nestle and the French private equity firm Pie Partners and New York-based Cloe compete with brands owned by a joint venture between the Cloe, which sells low-sugar fruit pop. More than 10,000 stores Nationwide including Walmart and Vegman.
They all face a hard road, which assures more Americans to buy low-sugar desire. In January, Goodpop injured a line Low sugar beverages – Which fruit juice is mixed with sparkling water – customers said that their children do not think the drinks were quite sweet.
“We were not ready to compromise on any additional sugar or any additional sweetness,” Goetz says: “We say:” We have some difficult times ahead, as far as those taste buds continue to reset. But this is a meaningful reason. “
Ultimately, the goatz’s target from college is almost the same: Get the Goodpop’s dessert as much as possible. In February, company A licensing deal made With Walt Disney Company, a new strategy for the company to attract the attention of “Star Wars” and Mickey Mouse-Theme products to the offerings of Goodpops.
“The future makes our products great, it looks like doubled on it,” goes.
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