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My successes.

Based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Pronounced "Van-Liss Lemonade" - Vanlice Lemonade was founded in July of 2017 by Vee Washington, who set out to make the best lemonade on earth! The lemonade can be ordered online, and is distributed in nine Hy-Vee stores as well as independent retailers and restaurants.

I think for me, success was landing my first Hy-Vee contract.  That was a big pinnacle for me,  and now we have nine Hy-Vee locations.  We are in several restaurants, liquor stores and general stores. Success is also having conversations with stores like Target. They like the product, and I hope we can take the next steps with big box stores.

I also find success at our Farmer markets. When you have return customers, and they tell you the feedback and they bring friends, and they go home and order, it’s this organic growth of the business by word of mouth.  I also like the Farmer's markets as an opportunity to hire college kids and younger adults and teach them entrepreneurship.

What do you do?

Vee crafted the formula for Vanlice Lemonade after studying how different cultures made real, all-natural lemonade. He watched as Asians, Indians, Hispanics, Native Americans, Americans, West Africans and more made their best lemonade. Vanlice Lemonade is a family-owned and immigrant-owned business. The lemonade can be ordered online, and distributed in nine Hy-Vee stores as well as independent retailers and restaurants.

What inspired you to start your business?

I am a first-generation immigrant, and really, the goal was to figure out how to develop the best lemonade possible and get back to real ingredients. There are just so many products out there that are artificial, especially for our kids.  I found that a lot of beverages they say are healthy for you taste gross. You have to develop something that tastes good at the same time. That was the focus.

I also set out to create a business I can do with my family. My daughter Hazel (age 7)  is actively working alongside me and learning how to be an entrepreneur.  She has been helping me from day one, from washing lemons to putting things on the shelf.  I'm teaching her what a CEO is,  and
it's been fun seeing her develop into this mini CEO. In fact, Hazel's mini stand at the Farmer's market often does better than mine.  I love teaching her that anything's possible as long as you want to do it, and as long as you want to put your mind to it.

What's special about your business?

Vanlice Lemonade is freshly squeezed lemonade with a hint of vanilla bean inside. We do everything ourselves, including producing our own vanilla bean. We also do home deliveries -- old-school "milkman" style. The whole idea was to bring it back to old-school lemonade and all-natural ingredients. 

 

What have been the high and low points of being a business owner?

The high is definitely seeing my daughter grow into herself more .  I love creating with her and then seeing her test it out with friends and classmates and then hearing her feedback from school.

I also like just watching our customers. I will sit back and watch the customer go and grab a lemonade, open it up, and they don’t know I’m the creator. I don’t tell people sometimes. I watch the expression on their face. It’s like oh my gosh, what is this? The kids grab it and they don’t want to put it down. It’s been a whole thing just watching the process and then hearing the feedback from people about how it’s natural and doesn’t give me that “nasty face” or those who say “I’m a diabetic, it’s the only thing I can drink.” So, it’s those type of things that have a positive impact on people.

Lows would be not knowing how much it takes to really grow a business especially when you are doing this full-time. It’s the hardest thing trying to budget your time with family and also being able to grow business too.  Trying to manage the money aspect of it and also managing how fast we are selling through the product and not being able to have a set of capital to actually replenish. That is the biggest thing is the lack of capital to actually grow the business as far as we want to grow it. 

What is your relationship with SCORE? SCORE client What influenced you to seek help from SCORE?

A guy said, “You know what? I love your lemonade. You need to check out SCORE.” I was like, “What’s SCORE?”  He explained that SCORE is an organization of people who want to help business owners. 

I was initially reluctant, but then we tried it out, and I knew it was different right away. It’s a different vibe.  These people know their stuff, and when you get their time, they can help you close some of the gaps.

How SCORE helped.

SCORE has been highly beneficial.  It’s an incredible organization. Every time I meet with my mentor, it’s a mind-blowing experience where I see, this is how I fix this, or else he'll connect with somebody who can help me. 

Specifically, he helped with strategy and the production process. We had to get a better schedule set up for the production and also understand what we needed to grow. We were having an issue outgrowing our space really fast, and so he laid out a whole plan of what we could do.

He’s in sales, and I’m in sales, so he understood and encouraged me to push beyond my comfort zone. That position forces you to work harder to sell because you need to.  It’s scary at times, but we need encouragement from people like that who are very successful in their life and they know what it takes to get to that next level. 

What's great about my mentor?

My current mentor is Greg. It usually took me a long time to explain my business to people, but when we first met, I said what I had to say, and he got it right away. He immediately drew out this whole board with suggestions for how to fix my issues.  I could see right away he was as passionate about it as I was.   He’s been extremely helpful.

What advice would you give to someone thinking of starting a small business?

The first advice I would give is don’t quit your day job too early. I stepped away, and I should have probably waited a little bit longer.  You will know when it’s time to leave the job, but it’s nice to have that backup plan.

Two,  pay attention and listen to people who’ve actually done it. Everyone wants to give you advice. Do this, you should do this, you should do that.  I just take advice from people who’ve done it. I try to study the people I want to be like when it comes to business. I study how they operate,  how they got there, and then I keep trying to follow the steps (or skip some of the steps) they went through.

I think family tries really hard to protect you by telling you things that you shouldn’t do. They mean well, but I don’t think I’d be here if I listened to my family. I probably would have quit by now.

 

What would you tell a fellow business owner about SCORE?

I would say hop on SCORE as fast as you can. Try to find a mentor as fast as you can. And then pay attention to these emails that come in with workshops, because they’re extremely helpful. I did a legal workshop on trademarking, it was crazy how much time and energy I saved.

SCORE closes the gaps of the things you don’t know and helps fill in the gaps you need to.

 

What have you learned from your experiences as a business owner?

I like to ask questions. And I'm very humble, so it's that thing too. So if somebody's willing to show me something, I'm willing to sit there and listen and learn.

My goal for the next three or five years is to be running at least a hundred stores. I’d also like to obtain either a large box store, like Target or Whole Foods. I’d also like to be able to figure out how to take my hands off of the business more as far as the production side of it and just focus on being able to interact with people and sell more accounts and just be able to free my time up a little bit more.

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Greg Lincoln

My passion is marketing and advertising. This world of marketing is amazingly dynamic and has been...

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