YouSaid · the spoken record

Justin Woolverton

lines on the record: 126
first: 2023-04-17
most recent: 2023-04-17
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Yeah, frozen Greek yogurt hadn't come out. I'm not too aware of any sugar-free ice creams, but it was actually a big decision at the beginning as to whether to make frozen Greek yogurt or to make that concoction I made, which would become Halo Top, which was light ice cream. And on one hand, frozen Greek yogurt would be such an easy sell to stores into the public. But on the other hand, all of these Greek yogurt companies, whether it's Chobani or whether it's just Ben& Jerry's or something, they could make a frozen Greek yogurt at the snap of their fingers. Whereas my little light ice cream concoction was much more unique and had a different value proposition in that it didn't have tang basically. So I had to make that decision as to what I wanted to start my company around.”
2023-04-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Halo Top Ice Cream: Justin Woolverton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, believe it or not, it wasn't very good. I mean, this is kind of obvious. It wasn't good coming straight out of my freezer. But when I bought a cheap ice cream maker off Amazon, I ran the concoction through that. It actually did taste really good, believe it or not. From that point on, I started Halo Top. I mean, that became my life. That night I ordered again from Amazon a book called Sell Your Specialty Food, which is basically food business for dummies. And I was just full go on that stuff. Happened is when I made it in the ice cream machine, it tasted so good that I immediately ran down to my local stores in like a crazy man was running up and down the aisles, the freezer aisles, being like, has anybody done this? It seems like a slam dunk has anybody done this. And they hadn't.”
2023-04-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Halo Top Ice Cream: Justin Woolverton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I love making it. I've got an ice cream maker, and I used egg yolks and cream and sugar and mint leaves or whatever, vanilla, whatever I have. And it's good. It's pretty good. But I'm thinking You're doing doesn't sound that good, so I'm trying to figure out at what point were you like, hey, this is really good. I think other people are going to want this.”
2023-04-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Halo Top Ice Cream: Justin Woolverton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, you're exactly right. You can't let it freeze overnight. You have to let it freeze for like an hour or two, or else you're right. It freezes into an ice cube.”
2023-04-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Halo Top Ice Cream: Justin Woolverton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then I basically got sick of the tang of Greek yogurt. And made an analog just kind of just looking at the nutritional facts and using some cream here and some egg whites here and some sweetener here to try to mimic ice cream.”
2023-04-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Halo Top Ice Cream: Justin Woolverton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yep, exactly. And it comes down to Greek yogurt. I don't think there would be a halo top without Greek yogurt. I was eating Greek yogurt once, twice a day. I like to limit my sugar intake, so I wasn't getting the Greek yogurt that had like the sugary fruit on the side that comes with it. I would get the plain stuff, and I would add my own fruit and I would, you know, add stevia to it, like a zero calorie sweetener. I think everybody at this point knows what stevia is. And I was eating that so much that eventually I began to freeze it in a very bachelor style way. Like seriously, just put it.”
2023-04-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Halo Top Ice Cream: Justin Woolverton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But how did you come across the idea of making ice cream? How did that happen? Initially, from what I gather, you didn't make this to sell it. You were just like, let me try to make some ice cream for myself.”
2023-04-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Halo Top Ice Cream: Justin Woolverton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Not at all. I don't think I had an entrepreneurial bone in my body until I realized I did, of course, when I founded a company.”
2023-04-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Halo Top Ice Cream: Justin Woolverton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, all right, so you're doing your kind of trying to be a little health conscious. But what I'm trying to figure out, because this is a big leap we're about to take here. And so I'm trying to figure out how you... How you start to think about food in a food business or a business at all? I mean, were you in your mind thinking while you were at the law firm? I should start a business.”
2023-04-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Halo Top Ice Cream: Justin Woolverton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Nope. No gluten allergies, but in the past I had tried one of those carb elimination diets like Atkins, and it didn't work for me, but I realized. That I didn't do well on a lot of carbs. So I began consciously lowering my carb intake and my sugar intake and naturally increasing protein and fat. But it just, it gave me a lot of mental clarity and it just really feels like the right, it felt like the right fuel for my body.”
2023-04-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Halo Top Ice Cream: Justin Woolverton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, that was the one thing that was keeping me sane is I was trying to go to the gym for mental well-being and I was trying to eat healthy. The key in terms of lifestyle too is this is very common now that we've hit the COVID era. But even back then for lawyers, you could do almost all of your work remotely. And the grunt work that I was doing as a junior associate, this document review, you could do that anywhere.”
2023-04-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Halo Top Ice Cream: Justin Woolverton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Okay, so you're at the law firm and you're being a lawyer, kind of doing the, going through the motions of doing what you had to do. And then this idea comes to your mind about ice cream. The Ditza didn't just happen overnight Before we get to how that happened, tell me about your lifestyle. Were you at the time, you're working a lot, so were you exercising? Were you taking care of yourself? Or were you just sleeping and eating and waking up and working?”
2023-04-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Halo Top Ice Cream: Justin Woolverton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, I will say in my humble defense that every great comedian says that their first times on stage they were horrible, but I think if we're being realistic, I probably just wasn't very talented”
2023-04-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Halo Top Ice Cream: Justin Woolverton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I always tell people that they should try to do a stand up act just once just because number one you'll appreciate how much of an art it is for the really good guys and number two Any cringe moment you have in your life will just wash away compared to the first standup show you do.”
2023-04-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Halo Top Ice Cream: Justin Woolverton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I love how you put it. Yeah, it's a practical pivot. No, you're absolutely right. So the plan was to go into comedy and give that a shot for a year or two while I was practicing law kind of, you know, ostensibly practicing law. And so I was doing open mic nights. I was doing improv classes and I was doing what they call spec scripts to send into different comedy shows where you basically write an episode and see if they like it. I never actually, I did about 10 stand-up gigs and I never actually completed a spec script because ultimately Halo top got in the way, fell in my lap, and I ran with that”
2023-04-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Halo Top Ice Cream: Justin Woolverton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right, right. So I guess around 2010 you moved back to LA, you continue working at Latham Wauken's office in LA as a lawyer. And I guess while you're in LA, you start dabbling in things that have nothing to do with being a lawyer, like stand-up comedy and writing screenplays. And it's not to say that you can't do those things. There are probably lots of people who are lawyers who went into screenwriting, but maybe not lots, but some. But you're thinking this is a practical pivot for me. Like, this is what I think I can do.”
2023-04-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Halo Top Ice Cream: Justin Woolverton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, that's actually the issue. Was my student debt was so high at $300,000 that even though I was making clearing $200,000 a year, I was still living like a law student. And so I kind of did the math and realized that I would have to crush, just keep grinding away at this job for like eight years just to finally get rid of my student loan debt. And then I have no guarantee of what would come after. So in a weird way, that student loan debt actually propelled me into taking risks, as odd as that sounds, because I realized I couldn't do that job to tread water.”
2023-04-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Halo Top Ice Cream: Justin Woolverton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's amazing you know that saying because they say it's a cake eating contest where the prize is more cake That's exactly what lawyers say maybe it is pie you might have it more correctly than I do but yeah you're exactly right”
2023-04-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Halo Top Ice Cream: Justin Woolverton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There's a certain type of person who can do that work and who can tolerate it. But the reality is you're fighting and fighting and fighting to make partner, and then you make partner and you realize it doesn't get better. You just get more piety.”
2023-04-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Halo Top Ice Cream: Justin Woolverton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So that's like 2011, and that's when I realized I could not keep doing this because the dream of it getting better from being a junior associate, I just got the best assignment that I would probably ever get. And I did, I hated it. So, damn. There goes, you know, since I was 12 years old, I wanted to be a lawyer, and this is the moment when it all came crashing down, and I realized I cannot be a lawyer, at least a firm of this size doing, well, actually, I just realized I couldn't be a lawyer.”
2023-04-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Halo Top Ice Cream: Justin Woolverton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Never even saw the city. I got like every day I would get some dumplings, but other than that, really didn't get to see the city.”
2023-04-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Halo Top Ice Cream: Justin Woolverton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's exactly what it was like. In the light at the end of the tunnel is that it's going to get better. It's going to get better. And I eventually got in with a good partner, kind of in my second or third year, who gave me an awesome case. I basically flew to Hong Kong to appear before a tribunal. They had like the English judges with the powdered wigs, you know. Yeah. Stated a really nice hotel. It was as good as it gets for a lawyer. And I realized that I was in my hotel room in Hong Kong the entire time”
2023-04-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Halo Top Ice Cream: Justin Woolverton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh my goodness, I did not like it. That's when I was like, oh boy, you know, I don't know if this is actually for me. Didn't quite gel with the other students. I had a core group that I liked. We all just seem to, I don't know, didn't click for whatever reason, backgrounds, who knows. But it wasn't a great time. I actually at one point thought about transferring back to UCLA law, but I really like New York City so ultimately I didn't.”
2023-04-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Halo Top Ice Cream: Justin Woolverton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh my goodness. You remember those John Grisham novels or those movies, Pelican Brief, I think, is one of them. And it just seems so glamorous and you're involved in crimes and mysteries. And honestly, I bought into that stuff. And I thought, you know, I think I'm a good arguer, this, that, and the other. And I thought lawyers made a ton of money, for example, even though I didn't realize the ramifications of going into $300,000 of student debt. But I was just fully focused on I'm going to be a lawyer. I'm going to be a lawyer. And that didn't change until I was like from 12 to 30 years old. I was just dead set. I'm going to be a lawyer.”
2023-04-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Halo Top Ice Cream: Justin Woolverton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I actually, at the age of 12, basically, was dead set on being a lawyer of constantly. Everybody you know it, especially around 20, would be like, what am I doing with my life? And I was always just confident like, I'm going to be a lawyer. I clearly had a different conception of what a lawyer actually was. What did you say?”
2023-04-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Halo Top Ice Cream: Justin Woolverton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, no, and so I show up like a couple days later with my little recipe and my ingredients that I bought from Smart and Final. And he's like, so, what are you making? And I'm like proudly like, I'm making the first all-natural, healthy ice cream. And he just looks at me and is like, So it's not weed.”
2023-04-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Halo Top Ice Cream: Justin Woolverton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT