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What was the “Aha Moment” that led to the idea for your current company? Can you share that story with us? We immediately decided to spend our summer identifying the business opportunity for Frutero. Our research revealed that there was not a single brand catering to tropical fruit flavors. Ice cream is more than $10 billion market in the US, but overly cluttered with variations of chocolate. Mike and I thought there must be more people like us who would love tropical fruit ice cream. During the summers, my cousins and I loved to sit in the orchard eating freshly plucked mangoes. I grew up in the eastern part of India in a town called Ranchi where my grandfather had a mango orchard. For me, tropical fruits bring me closer to my childhood memories. He immediately fell in love with it and once back in the U.S., we were appalled to see that there was no tropical fruit ice cream on the market.įor Mike, tropical fruits bring back memories of his family’s vacation in Latin America where he enjoyed passion fruit margaritas. While we were brainstorming ideas, Mike had plans to travel to India and I suggested that while there, he try tropical fruit ice cream in Mumbai, as it is part of our culture and I thought he’d enjoy it as much as I did. Within a few weeks we became very good friends, united by our ambition to start a business. On the first day I was assigned to sit next to this amazing gentleman, Mike Weber. in 2018 to pursue my MBA at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?
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Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. They’ve also caught the attention of investors, several with deep experience in the food and beverage sector. Introducing an ice cream with superior texture and all-natural tropical fruit flavors, including passion fruit, mango, guava, guanabana, coconut, pineapple, and tangerine, the two have seen exponential growth in distribution and demand in just two years on the market. After returning to the states, the two decided to leverage America’s love of ice cream and the growing trend that reflects consumers’ desire to experience global flavors, especially those from Asia and Latin America. The inspiration for Frutero came during Mike’s visit to Vedant’s native India where he experienced first-hand the tropical fruit flavored ice cream which is a huge phenomenon there. He completed his undergraduate degree in Engineering Physics from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi. Prior to coming to Wharton for his MBA, Vedant lived in India where he worked at Blackstone as an investment associate and McKinsey & Co. At Weissbeerger, he loved hearing stories from the founders about their early days running the company and the journey that led to their acquisition by Anheuser-Busch InBev. Fascinated by the rapid innovation in food, Weber joined an Israeli beer startup, WeissBeerger, to help the company expand in the U.S. After graduating from the University of Maryland with degrees in finance and biology, he joined Deloitte Consulting and worked with multiple food and beverage companies, including a leading ice cream manufacturer. Mike is the CEO and Vedant leads sales and business development for Frutero, one of America’s fastest growing ice cream brands.įrom a young age, Mike always loved trying new food and exploring cultures through culinary experiences. The two became fast friends and over time joined forces to share their dream of building a great company. Mike Weber and Vedant Saboo met on their first day of class at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School when they were pursuing their MBAs and randomly assigned to sit next to each other. I had the pleasure of interviewing Vedant Saboo and Mike Weber, founders of Frutero Ice Cream In this series, called “ Five Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Startup ” we are talking to experienced and successful founders and business leaders who can share stories from their experience about what it takes to create a highly successful startup. What does a founder or a founding team need to know to create a highly successful startup? Yet we of course know that most startups don’t end up as success stories.
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Companies like Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Uber, and Airbnb once started as scrappy startups with huge dreams and huge obstacles. S tartups have such a glamorous reputation.