We Lost A $40M Ice Cream Business - How We're Rebuilding 

I think what is amazing is that you two stayed a married couple and still love and support one another. Business, money, homes, etc will come and go, but your marriage is the foundation. Good on you for that!!

THANK you for highlighting a different type of story rather than pure success stories.

I hope this becomes a series. This, to me, more valuable than seeing how entrepreneurs built their original business. I wish them so much success!

As a longtime Ample Hills supporter, I respect Brian and Jackie so much! Not only is their product amazing, they’re both really grounded and solid humans. Friends and I have had many bday parties at their BK location & they’ve always been so kind, always. It broke our heart to hear them walk away - beyond wondering what would happen to my favorite flavor Ooey Gooey lol - what would become of them? So once we heard that they opened The Social, it was a sigh of relief. Watching/hearing their story is so incredible and inspiring to me as a business owner and hits different because they were/are so beloved in the community.

A teachable business story on the cons of scaling up too fast. I'm glad they are building back and better. This is an incredible story.

The moment the got the VC funding, they were destined for the death spiral. They were not ready for that level of expansion when getting that funding. A very critical lesson in knowing when to push the expansion button or not. Just because there’s money you can tap it doesn’t mean you should. An incredibly painful experience if you love business.

This happened to my brother, but mostly because of the pandemic. He grew fast and then the pandemic hit and sales halted. But he built it back and it’s going really well now.

People tend to scale up too soon. Run only what you can handle

Their biggest mistake is the most obvious. A 25000 sq ft facility in Brooklyn. No wonder they couldn’t meet overhead. Could of found a rural dairy farm to partner with and probably still be in business and avoided bankruptcy. Why can’t city people think outside of their box. Shut the factory down and relocate it. Dang

To me, this is as much about a successful marriage as it is about business. Truly inspirational.

So they lost millions for their investors, screwed over their suppliers and creditors who they couldn't pay back, then repurchased the business back a few years later for almost no money and are now proudly proclaiming that they're giving it a second shot? It's actually pretty appalling that they're allowed to repurchase a business they themselves drove to bankruptcy; everyone else got screwed while they got out with their business on the other end without the debt it previously held and also with massive losses they can carry forward to essentially never pay taxes ever.

This NEEDS to be a series. So much to learn!

I like the attitude of learning from failure and disaster.

as a brooklyn native, i have fond memories of frequently dining at their establishment. it was a place where i would bring my friends, immersing ourselves in the diverse culture and feeling the warmth of love. i am truly honored to see them back in action. this segment has not only been informative about business and scaling but has also reminded me of the love they bring to the community. a heartfelt salute to you and your team!

thanks for your story. im also a small business owner, since about ten years, with no VC funding and now im reassured that this was the right way to go. many thanks and i hope that in a few years you will expand to europe where i live and ill visit your store for sure!

Even I am at my lowest point in my life, I feel so happy for this amazing couple. This story is Truly inspiring

Thanks for this! I’m still suffering from the loss of losing my business in 2020… I haven’t bounced back this good… yet

That's an inspiring story! They must have been over the moon when they could buy back their original chain. I've started a few businesses - tiny, nothing like theirs - but letting go of a business that you've run for years is like letting go of a child.

Super interview, thanks for sharing. Sorry you had to go through 10 years of grinding for that to happen but omg to pull back through the otherside is very inspiring. Ppl dont realize how failing forward really makes for successful future, that experience, you can not buy it ❤ Blessings to you both and your business ❤

Ever wonder how the most caustic criticisms are usually from those who’ve never run a business? At least not in real life. They’ve only done a shitload of case studies in business school and believe they know all there is to know about running a business. Congratulations Brian and Jackie on getting your business back! And many cheers to your love story. From one entrepreneur to another, I wish you Godspeed.

This is one of the best and most instructive of the series. Kudos to these entrepreneurs and the producers for sharing.

It’s good to hear their story ended on a positive note. One thing that is often overlooked with newer growing businesses is a competent CFO. When you get that amount of funding coming in it’s like hitting the lottery and you really need someone well experienced with financial projections to model out the costs of those big investments before committing to a large multi-year lease like that. Another thing is opening locations far away from your original market is difficult. Now you are spread thin with locations across the US and unable to maintain quality control. A better option could have going the franchising route which brings in an experienced operator with financial risk (skin in the game).

I lived 2 blocks away from Ample Hills on St. Marks in Brooklyn. It was a great Ice Cream shop and I like most of the flavors. They even opened one in Astoria, Queens. So sad to see the shops closed and happy to see them re-opened 🙂

Wow, as I build my business hearing stories like this is so inspiring. I’m glad they didn’t give up!

Private equity is a double edge sword. Watch your back.

They’ve raised $19 million in 2 years or so, and lost 15-16 million dollars over 3 years, and were surprised they’re out of cash? What?

Well done guys for not giving up!! Wish you much success going forward

starting one solid shop and then growing it to 1-2 more is the best in my opinion instead of rapid expansion because then you have factors such as overhead, employee retention and management issues as well with rapid expansion but slow and steady growth allows you to see different perspectives and growth opportunities to better manage a business

So inspiring for all the creatives out there. A series we need! We also want to hear more details about ample hill.

Love seeing these honest looks at what it takes to be an entrepreneur!

So they mismanaged a 40 million dollar business down to the ground, declared bankruptcy, defaulted on all their debts, and now they're at it again? And they probably get tax breaks for their losses? Ridiculous

So many lessons. Thank you for sharing!! 🙏🏾

focusing on profitable locations is a great decision imo. i had a smaller business than ample hills that i grew through establishing new locations. i never went bankrupt, but i did sell to a large corporation and found that my quality of life tanked. now i have a single location that is 75% the size of my all of my five locations i used to own. it's much easier to manage for an individual owner with no partners or investors and my quality of life is better than before. i don't earn the really big money i earned before, but i'm happy. that's worth it. i hope brian and jackie have the same outcome

As a loyal viewer of CNBC, I thoroughly enjoyed this couple's story as I am am from the neighborhood in Brooklyn where the first got started. Would definitely love to see more "bounce back stories" like Brian and Jackie's because this information is incredibly valuable to small business owners and entrepreneurs that are trying to scale, but lack this kind of knowledge from behind the scenes.

Business Owner here- thank you for sharing your jouney, much appriciated

The graphic at 5:15 tells me this wasn’t a $40M company. Growth last couple years was decent but not amazing, with a massive increase in costs.

Interesting story. Read up a bit on them. Jackie Cuscuna and Brian Smith say they’ve been fired by the very investors they helped entice to buy back the business,

Very interesting business case! Glad they are now back in business and doing well. Hope to visit one of their shops one day!

Brian and Jackie just got fired so you are going to need to do an update video. As someone from the area where their shops are its fascinating seeing them and Van Leeuwen both emerge and one struggle while the other take it's spot.

I ❤ their determination. It takes a lot to come back again after such a failure.

I am rooting for you guys. Ample Hill is my favorite ice cream shop.

Can you tell me what was the course name Jackie took at the BCC for business owners who have to pivot?

THANK YOU FOR SHARING ,,, LEARNED MORE STUFF TODAY.

I remember this ice cream shop on the west side of Manhattan. They didn't have the simplest of flavors in stock, and the line was a mess trying to figure out how to order in a dark dank giant flea market of a room.

Oh man, I remember seeing the shuttered shop in Park Slope and the monthly rent was ASTRONOMICAL. Good for them to try again

Bravo to them! Thank you so much for sharing this. 🙌🙌🙌

Come up with a bad idea that loses millions a year in its best year, get investors to fork out millions to cover your losses, your bad idea fails. Then repeat.

Wonderful story...and it shows they were always in it for the love of it and not the money.

These are hardworking people. I hope that they can sustain success.

This is inspiring. So much lessons to learn

Happened to one of the brand at my local place, they grow sooo fast, opening branches one every 2 weeks, they were everywhere serving coffee, cakes, cookies, butter cookies etc. At one time I said Wow they must be doing really good with their financial, there should be tonnes of VCs or banks willing to lend them the money for them to grow faster but I notice something is not right, their shop is not fully crowded, some small entrepreneurs starts to open their own coffee shop serving almost the same things at smaller scale, they didn't make enough ads for people to recognize them (they put banners everywhere, under flyover, traffic stops, billboards, join events to open small booths, flyers distribution to local mall, discounts, coupons, limited time offer etc.) but their menu hasn't changed at all, the price were extremely overprice at some point, they didn't listened to their customer's complaint about some of their menu and didn't make any improvement to the existing menu, they keep opening branches some of them come close to one another like 1-2 miles from each others serving the same things and the shops layout (the design and colors) is not welcoming at all, the staff is not friendly and in some cases were rude to their customers. I would assume that they wont make it in the next 12-18 months if they keep going with this attitude or work ethics, people will eventually hop in to smaller shops which offer a lot more price to value to taste performance.

Very inspiring, thanks for sharing the story.

Lovely story glad they shared it

Good for them. I'm glad they were able to bounce back.

as soon as the name bob iger came in and how he was a mentor, its amazing they only lost $40M

Awesome rebound. The rough road is not always bad, it may feel bad for awhile. "You didn't come this far to not go farther"

This icecream story was absolutely great to understand the pros and cons of running a business...

Opening that factory is what hurt them the most! If they would have had some type of mentor they would of advised to use a copacker! NOT OPEN A DAM FACTORY! It’s like buying a multi million dollar piece of equipment or renting it for a fraction of the price.

This was inspiring. So happy for them.

CNBC Make It and Icecream. Name a more iconic pair.

We love the story. Thanks CNBC team for sharing this.

As someone who has grown a multimillion dollar brand from scratch, in the past 3yrs, stories like this are of continued value. I have had many businesses over the years, but strong momentum can be more deceiving than certain struggle, just due to overconfidence. I am much more slow paced with my scaling, and while investment dollars would likely propel me into 8 figures, that machine size just isnt for me right now. Great story to watch and reinforce my mindset for sure!

I absolutely miss ample hills! Please come back to LB, ca

Great story and advice!

Slow and steady wins the race. 🎉

Loved how it came full circle!!!! Commenting so more people see this!! 😍

So inspiring! I feel this is the true American spirit of bouncing back and approaching ‘failure’ the right way. Thanks for sharing this ❤🍦

Wow! Inspiring!

Selling online could’ve been the saving grace. Physical locations are really tough with the overhead and rent.

Such a teachable lesson!

Much respect to this couple. As an entrepreneur I learned some businesses are not meant to be BIG. Like ice cream shops

Love a good comeback story

What a fantastic episode!

The headline is so misleading. The only reason they had to declare bankruptcy was that the couple drained the company for such much money in the previous years they took out so many millions. this was the only reason why they had to declare bankruptcy if they were not that greedy, all would not have happened. after the bankruptcy, they were still richer than ever they had way more money, as when they started. I only feel sorry for their employees. This was gross mismanagement by a greedy couple

can you please cover these types of failure stories too. Very helpful.

They should've focused on after developing the brand and business 1) exclusive flavors with brands 2) specialized units sold in groceries, restaurants, online, etc Just being an ice cream store is too competitive

love how they didn't stop at an appropriate point to keep demand up and maintain an intimate brand experience, but went the disease route of massive endless capitalistic expansion, which is obviously unfeasible and somehow encoded into our greedy American minds these days. Also, imho, It's ice cream, they weren't bought by a mega corp like nestle, so the business was doomed the second they expanded out of NYC, or even their original location.

What an inspirational story - kudos to this lovely couple!

Good to see that the marriage survived. That is not usually the case. Speaks volumes about their relationship. I wish them the best.

We need more of these kind of stories. More realistic, something a wider audience base can identify with - failing and what comes after.

I needed, thank you

Such an amazing, inspiring story!!

Such a beautiful ending to a wonderful story.

I really admire these two

Viral ice cream Got overexcited no business school and experience Went over growth spree Got bankrupt due to lukewarm sales and not enough money to sustain own factory Got bought by investment fund Kicked them out Started another ice cream This time wiser and slower Bounced back Rebought original company

Wow I went through the same thing had a small hobby business there comes a point when you are too small and at the same time you are too big the cost of the equipment and finding young people to work is very difficult. At the end it was not a hobby anymore. Awesome story!

Definitely more of these stories

More stories like this please

Sad news they’ve lost the Social too and the investors kicked them out of that too :(

How could they underestimate the number of scoop shops to keep the factory operational by such a huge margin. Seems like some math and statistics and a little bit of gut feel would have answered that question that ended up killing the biz.

What an amazing story ! I love this💖☺

This was an interesting watch

Thanks for sharing your story! Failure isn't the end and success is always right around the corner. Excited to try your ice cream sometime!!

Good story from the recovery angle.... Keep an eye on return on assets..... asset velocity is a main secret to liquidity in business. A small asset/sized business could be more profitable than a bigger sized. Profitability must be well thought through before choosing size, be it a small biz or big sized enterprise. Different sizes and assets demand different needs which include appropriate staffing, process, demand for the product and contingencies.

I now run a successful luxury picnic business in Hawaii because of this channel❤

10 mil a year, 40 million value for business, only to go chapter 11 the next year? How much debt did they have on the books along with months of reserves they didn’t have? Who does these valuations? Kudos to their resilience and the extra push.

Wow life lesson learned

Seems like a great deal. You build up your company - owe a lot of debt - then file for bankruptsy - you get to keep most of your stuff - the companies that lost tons of money by supplying your company with their products get maybe pennies on the dollar. You reopen with the huge stock of items you never pay for - no one gets hurt right?

Wow! I needed to see this video as I recently closed my travel startup but a little voice keeps telling me to keep going.

Fast growth can be a curse. Glad they made it thru