GoKawiilKey Takeaways Pop star Ciara cofounded a new protein-enhanced juice for kids, called Frosh.
Crowded markets aren’t closed markets. Saturation signals consumer interest; now the opportunity is finding the specific need nobody is solving.
Smart go-to-market strategies involve identifying the occasions that consumers will use your product.
Like most parents, Ciara was alarmed by her kids’ eating habits.
Her daughter Sienna wouldn’t eat protein. “She wanted butter noodles, no meat,” recalls Ciara. “She wanted rice, no meat. Everything would be like, no meat, no meat. I’m like, can we please add some chicken? Can we add some steak? How about we just try the steak?”
It’s the kind of daily battle that exhausts parents everywhere. And for a while, Ciara — the Grammy-winning musician and entertainer — had no answer for it.
Then she met Chris Koch.
Koch is an experienced CPG builder who, through his venture studio VO/D, develops new concepts in consumer white spaces. He’d spent two years watching an ingredient called clear whey protein isolate — a form of protein that, unlike traditional whey, dissolves cleanly into liquid without the chalky taste or thick texture that makes most protein drinks unpleasant. Koch had noticed that the ingredient was gaining traction in adult beverages, but it hadn’t been used widely for kids.
Koch envisioned a juice for kids, with real protein and lower sugar content than traditional juice. When he explained the concept to Ciara, she says she didn’t need much convincing to become a cofounder. “Sign me up,” she told him.
That conversation became Frosh, a protein-enhanced juice brand that just launched nationwide in Target, following a sold-out direct-to-consumer launch. And the story of how it got there offers a useful window into how to find opportunity in markets that everyone else has written off.
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