Cool Case: Queen of Ice Cream Disrupts the Patriarchy with Natasha Case – Episode 42

The Recap

Jennifer welcomes to the podcast architect, entrepreneur and ice cream connoisseur, Natasha Case. Natasha founded Coolhaus in 2009 with business partner and now wife, Freya Estreller. They launched their unique ice cream sandwich company from a barely drive-able postal van at the Coachella Music Festival and established a fiercely loyal following practically overnight. After going viral, Coolhaus built an incredible social media following among an eager foodie audience. Since then, Natasha has garnered praise and accolades from Forbes, Food & Beverage, Zagat, and Food & Lesiure, among other publications. Her products have been featured on multiple television shows, such as Food Network’s Chopped, Barefoot Contessa, Unique Sweets, and Good Morning America. Coolhaus is the leading women-owned ice cream business and its products can be found in over 7,500 gourmet grocery stores in every state across the U.S.

In this episode, Natasha tells the origin story of how she came up with the concept for Coolhaus. Natasha has always been self-motivated and hard-working, traits that have served her well as a successful entrepreneur. She tells the story of how she met her wife, Freya and how their relationship has evolved over the years. Natasha opens up about their decision to start a family and the impact that had on their work-life balance. Natasha also talks about other projects she and Freya are working on, including Freya’s company, Future Gin. Finally, Natasha speaks about the future of Coolhaus and her desire to expand and make it the premier household brand of the millennial generation.

Episode Highlights

01:16 – Jennifer reiterates her charity initiative for the month of April, Children’s Defense Fund

01:44 – Jennifer announces a special giveaway

03:05 – Introducing Natasha Case

05:19 – Natasha’s background and roots

08:20 – Natasha speaks to her why she’s always been so motivated

10:58 – How the Recession of 2008 impacted Natasha’s career path

12:33 – How Natasha met her wife and business partner, Freya

15:18 – Disrupting the industry

17:55 – The genesis of Coolhaus

19:36 – Natasha tells the story of how she tested her product out at Coachella

23:04 – Getting creative at Coachella

24:57 – How Coolhaus went viral

28:04 – The People v. Natasha Case

30:28 – Expanding and growing the business

32:40 – The decision to build a brick and mortar storefront

35:12 – Natasha discusses starting their family

37:53 – Balancing work and being a mother

41:12 – Natasha talks about her family

43:27 – Other projects Natasha is involved in

45:35 – Natasha talks about the focus groups that Coolhaus has been working with

48:24 – Getting married

49:16 – Freya’s company, Future Gin

50:04 – Next steps for Coolhaus

51:20 – What is something Natasha has changed her mind about recently?

53:02 – An incredible trend Jennifer discovered about listeners of the MILF Podcast

54:38 – How does Natasha define success?

55:51 – Natasha’s work schedule

57:29 – Lightning round of questions

1:03:13 – Natasha talks about a unique Uber ride she recently experienced

1:04:54 – Jennifer urges the audience to subscribe to the MILF Podcast and leave a review

Tweetable Quotes

Links Mentioned

Jennifer’s Website

Jennifer’s Charity for April

Link to Jennifer’s New Website

Natasha’s Website

Natasha’s Instagram

Freya’s Instagram

Coolhaus Instagram

Coolhaus Facebook/

Coolhaus Twitter

Connect with Jennifer

Jennifer on Instagram

Jennifer on Twitter

Jennifer on Facebook

Jennifer on Linkedin

Transcript

Read Full Transcript

Natasha Case: I think that when you are passionate about what you do and then you have a kid. For me it's made me even more passionate. I really feel like you're doing it with a different purpose. I always loved doing what I do, but now I'm making like a bad ass ice cream legacy for Remy and like that fires me up even more. It makes me want to do even more and be even greater. You think about what you're creating for them, like how will they view this? How will they view you as a person and the context of business when they're older? You know you have that kind of like another set of eyes on you. I think it changes how you conduct yourself.
Speaker 2: You're listening to the MILF podcast. This is the show where we talk about motherhood and sexuality with amazing women with fascinating stories to share on the joys of being a MILF. Now here's your host, the MILFiest MILF I know, Jennifer Tracy.
Jennifer Tracy: Hey guys, welcome back to the show. This is MILF podcast, the show where we talk about motherhood, entrepreneurship, sexuality, and everything in between. I'm Jennifer Tracy your host and so happy to be bringing you this episode today. A couple items of business, this month the charity that I'm engaging with and donating to is called Children's Defense Fund. You can find them online, you can actually go to my website and I have a link to them in my giving page. You could donate to them directly, and you always have the option of writing an iTunes review for MILF podcast. Every iTunes review in the month of April, I will give $25 to Children's Defense Fund. There's that also on my website MILFpodcast.com you can sign up for a 21 day creative challenge, opt in, you just click on the little box, there's like an old timey typewriter and it says unlocked 21 day creative challenge.
Jennifer Tracy: It's a workshop that I'm giving it away for free to help people tell their stories. Because my whole mission is that everyone needs to tell their stories. The more people we can elevate their voices and hear their truth, that's why I started the podcast, the better off we will all be. Because the more stories we hear and listen to, hopefully the more we can actually understand each other, and have compassion and empathy for one another. Check that out, see if it's something you're interested in doing. It's basically like I said, three weeks, it's a workbook. I'm going to be taking you through the workbook. It's a couple of exercises just to open you up to whatever the project is that's been kind of nagging at you. You know how you always have that I kind of want to write a screenplay, or I kind of want to write a TV show, or there's a book story I have this idea.
Jennifer Tracy: But most of the time you just never do it because, because, because, because, because don't do that. Do it because there's a reason it's coming to you. There's that. Today on the show, I have Natasha case, who is the CEO and co founder of Coolhaus ice cream. This is such a cool company. I mean I felt very uncool being in there because I got to go to her headquarters to interview her in one of the conference rooms and wow. It says, one of the tag lines is awesome ice cream and it really is, first of all, the product is incredible. The ice cream is amazing. I got to go next door and sample a bunch of the ice cream, and they have these ice cream sandwiches that are just ridiculous. They're phenomenal. How she came upon this and came to this in her twenties, is just an extraordinary story.
Jennifer Tracy: Within that, met her wife and fell in love and they had the company together. Then, so Natasha and Freya started this company together from nothing. It grew and grew and grew and it is huge now and it's such an inspiring story. They have a little boy together now. Anyway, I'm not trying to give you spoilers, but I'm just so excited about sharing this conversation with you. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Natasha.
Jennifer Tracy: Hi, Natasha.
Natasha Case: Hello.
Jennifer Tracy: Thanks so much for being on the show.
Natasha Case: Yeah, my pleasure, I've been looking forward to it.
Jennifer Tracy: This is such a cool space, it's great.
Natasha Case: We have a fun little ice cream world here.
Jennifer Tracy: I love it. I accidentally walked into the ice cream shop next door and the guy was like, "Nope, you're in the wrong place." I went [inaudible 00:04:37] stands and everything, he was like, "You're totally in the wrong place."
Natasha Case: Usually it's the other way around. People come in here, and they go like standing there kind of mystified like, wait, where is the ice cream? Does some magical little Elf like hop out of the wall and serve me? Or they just, we put on the door as you might have seen, like this is not a gallery. This is not a weed store this is not a lighting store. We've gotten a lot-
Jennifer Tracy: Do you have people coming in here thinking you sell weed.
Natasha Case: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Interesting I wonder why that is?
Natasha Case: I feel like it's a compliment. Maybe someone does here.
Jennifer Tracy: Probably so. Let's start from the beginning. Where are you from?
Natasha Case: I'm from here I'm from Los Angeles.
Jennifer Tracy: Native.
Natasha Case: Yeah, third Generation.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my gosh, that's rare.
Natasha Case: Yeah. Blue blood.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow. Okay. Grew up here at what part of town?
Natasha Case: Sherman oaks. I'm a valley girl hence my middle name Jenny, which was actually my great grandmother's name. Just Jenny not Jennifer, but it sounds like a good eighties valley name.
Jennifer Tracy: I Love it. I was Jenny Hip, my maiden name is Hip. I was Jenny Hip until fourth grade and then I was like, no, it's just Jen. It's just Jen no, Jenny, I don't have time for the nny, so you grew up in Sherman oaks? What happened in Sherman Oaks?
Natasha Case: What's up in Sherman Oaks? I was there, I went to Harvard Westlake.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow that's not as easy school to go to.
Natasha Case: Yeah, it definitely was a very challenging place. We're still, my wife and I, even though she didn't go there, are both super involved in mentoring the entrepreneurs there. I just did a speaking event with her at Westlake, so it's been a very good thing to have your high school community close to where you are now being an adult. Then I went to Berkeley for college, so stayed in California. You know the barriers it's a whole own world.
Jennifer Tracy: It feels like another state.
Natasha Case: Yeah, for sure. Then I came back here for Grad school to UCLA. Then my first job was Disney Imagineering. That was-
Jennifer Tracy: You studied business?
Natasha Case: No. Hardly actually, I think I was not succeeding at business in college actually at all. But I studied architecture, and in Undergrad architecture and I double minored. It was like the lazy woman's double major in urban planning and Italian. I was like I kind of did that by accident.
Jennifer Tracy: It's the lazy woman's like, I've been talking to you, I can tell you exactly three minutes. There's nothing about you that's lazy, you have your shit together. That's so awesome. Then you said you started at Disney?
Natasha Case: Yeah, started there in 2008 summer right after I graduated from Grad School. I think I had like five days off before starting that job. It was just the place I really wanted to work. It was a dream. I was really drawn to Disney while one, a full disclosure, my mom is a TV animator, so she had worked on many shows there. But I just was drawn to the storytelling and how they create characters and how a lot of people had design and architecture backgrounds, but kind of had this whole other application to that skill set that was really unique. I was very, very intrigued by that and had wanted to start my career there.
Jennifer Tracy: How did it go? Well, back up for one second, cause I had another question that popped up. Were you always so motivated as a kid? Were you just like, let's get out there, let's do something like, so let's go back to Sherman Oaks. I feel like I missed something.
Natasha Case: In Sherman Oaks.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, we got to talk Sherman Oaks.
Natasha Case: I think definitely I was a pretty like go getter always definitely. As a kid I liked being passionate about the things that I did. I was really into sports. I played soccer, basketball, softball, a little bit of water polo, so just like all the seasons. A little golf, definitely stereotypical lesbian childhood, good at golf. Then I was also really into art and the creative side, and that's definitely speaks to my mom who's a TV animator but a trained artist and my dad is an architect. Definitely grew up around all the creativity and my dad is a huge Italifile. He had spent time there in college, so as particularly into like, kind of renaissance and that kind of art and architecture. But I think always really passionate, creatively, always loved drawing and then a little bit of music too.
Jennifer Tracy: You play instruments?
Natasha Case: Yeah, I played piano through childhood and then I played saxophone in middle school and high school jazz band.
Jennifer Tracy: That's amazing. Do you still play? You played [crosstalk 00:09:45]
Natasha Case: I have a two year old son, Remy.
Jennifer Tracy: Do you guys play together?
Natasha Case: Well we showed him some piano when we go to my parent's house, my mom always loves to play piano with him. He's gone like, you see from when he could barely even fumble around on the keys and now like playing notes, and playing with my mom a little like kind of it's almost like a duet.
Jennifer Tracy: A duet there's nothing better. My son does that with my mom too and I'm getting emotional hearing you talk about your son and your mom. There's something really special about that.
Natasha Case: Totally. I think to be aware of it so early on, it's like another language. He's a very good dancer. I think the music, it just kind of is going to be a passion. I don't know that I've really played the sax for him, I should, I think maybe once or twice.
Jennifer Tracy: You're going to blow his mind. He's going to lose his mind.
Natasha Case: I just reordered some reads so that, because I only have like 50 broken ones. Now I have a few that work, so now I can really bust it out for him. He's been curious about the box of reads, so I think he wants me to play for him.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my God that's going to be epic. You're working at Disney, so you're working at Disney you are in your dream job then what happens?
Natasha Case: The recession hits. Because it was 08, it was summer 08 when I started. Really by the end of summer, early fall, it was like something is very wrong economically. Any major business like Disney is going to take a hit from that. They really started laying people off and had a hiring freeze. I could see that, well one that it was just sort of darker mood at the office. I had started in college and in Grad School, wanting to make architecture more fun and accessible. I had discovered using food to do that. I had been playing around with all these food and architecture ideas for years and calling it [Forkitecture 00:11:42]
Jennifer Tracy: I love it.
Natasha Case: When the mood was dark as part of this concept this umbrella concept, started baking cookies, making ice cream, naming the combinations after architects. I handed them out to people at Disney to lighten the mood. Like sorry about the bad news. Here's a Frank Perry, here's a Muse vanilla row. It really did actually accomplish that. It was a passionate hobby for me I wasn't taking it super, super seriously. But then I met the other founder of Coolhaus Freya she's like, “There's some business potential in this.” This is a really crazy idea, but there is something beyond just this hobby, this could really be something
Jennifer Tracy: You're talking about your wife?
Natasha Case: Yes. Now wife.
Jennifer Tracy: How did you guys meet? Did you meet and then become business partners and then fall in love? May I ask?
Natasha Case: Sure, of course you can ask that's why we're in the podcast.
Jennifer Tracy: I love a love story.
Natasha Case: It sort of all happened at once. We started dating and we started making Coolhaus a business really from day one, there was never much separation. I think part of the attraction for her was like the creativity with this crazy idea, and someone who is really motivated to do something. We became romantically involved and like on the first date I brought her an ice cream sandwich that I had made, but it basically melted because I needed an operations person like her.
Jennifer Tracy: I'm so emotional, I'm very pre-menstrual. Everything you're telling me is making me cry. You playing the saxophone, your mom playing with your son. It's all waterworks.
Natasha Case: We can get you a tissue box.
Jennifer Tracy: It almost melted because you didn't have someone that was like, hey, if you're going to transport this, you're going to need the proper. That became her job of like articulating or constructing the framework for the business?
Natasha Case: Yes, more I think than she thought because I think she thought I was like a really technical architect and then she learned soon after I was really more a philosophical type. But yeah, so she was like, it was really funny actually. She said, she called them the elitist ice cream sandwiches even though I was trying to make architecture not elitist with the puny names. She's called them that, and then she said, “Well, what's your cost per unit of this product?” I was like, “I went to whole foods and it was like 80 bucks.” She's like, “Okay, we're going to go back to the market, and we're going to write down everything costs, make a little spreadsheet, and then we're going to figure out if this is a viable business.” I was like sounds so annoying. Why do we have to do that? It's funny at the time it's like to me, there was no option.
Natasha Case: I had to listen to her, but now I'm like. But we went to whole foods and it was, I'm so glad we did it. Not only because to know how the numbers were going to work, which is something I love now, which has totally changed, but also to just walk the freezer aisle of whole foods, even the whole foods, and see that there was really not that much innovation or uniqueness or artisan craft behind products. It was like the same big box brands who've been there for decades. I think we really saw there is an opportunity to disrupt and let's create something because we don't feel like any of these brands speak to us as millennials and definitely not as women. I think that was like a really important eye opening thing that we did, and then we saw like there was something major that we can do and we feel like we're the ones to do it.
Jennifer Tracy: I love that you just said opportunity to disrupt. I mean do you have t-shirts made that say that I think you need to have if you don't, that's incredible. Opportunity to disrupt because that's so true. It's like the people that we end up following are the people that break away from the norm and from the herd and do something innovative. Especially now when there's so much of that happening.
Natasha Case: I'm sorry.
Jennifer Tracy: Don't worry about it.
Natasha Case: Commotion at the office in the background. It is a working office, there's proof right there. I think that, what was the question again?
Jennifer Tracy: Opportunity to disrupt and how that is so, and especially right now, and I know this was, 11 years ago no 10 years ago. That has grown more and more and you've seen since you guys did that more and more things, not just in the ice cream aisle, but in other parts of the grocery store where they're embracing that more.
Natasha Case: I remember what you asked it. I was just writing this down with my social media manager. Nothing big ever comes from doing things that are in the way that is the status quo. The big things come from really changing the game, and there's really no data, there's really no mentorship that's going to know for sure that that's going to work out. You absolutely, you take an educated risk. Do your homework and really build a thesis as to why. But like more often than not, everything's going to say like this hasn't been done or nobody wants this. You do have to go against the grain to a certain point to do something big.
Jennifer Tracy: Absolutely. Oh my God. I mean I'm taking comfort in you saying that because it's interesting a lot of people are like, MILF, why do you call it the MILF? I'm like, well, it's both. I embraced the former use of the acronym and the mom's I'd like to follow. It's also like an F you to that whole thing of like, yes, I am both. I am all, we are those things. You can embrace that and be an entrepreneur and be a mom and be in love and have a loving relationship and [crosstalk 00:17:28]. But sometimes, and I've noticed more as I've been around longer, not everybody gets it and that's okay. But that's because it is different.
Natasha Case: I love the name. Out of the gate I thought it was hilarious.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay so back to you. You guys start this business, you fall in love then what happens?
Natasha Case: Yeah, so we for a few months we were kind of figuring it all out. I think both like, the relationship and starting the business. But it all happened very, very quickly. We started to really just iterate on the product, making cookies and ice cream all the time, figuring out the recipes, figuring out what our plan was going to be. Then in addition to that we were inseparable from the beginning. There were definitely like now of course I would tell someone in this tuition like, whoa, like make an operating plan. Plan the exit strategy. I get it its emotions and its love it's not business, but now you're kind of mixing too. I think we got incredibly lucky that we didn't really map it all out, but it remained a very positive thing, like our relationship and growing the business. That may not be true for everyone, so that is what I would tell anyone now.
Natasha Case: But it also just to show that sometimes you're right. A lot of people could have been like, whoa, this is like, you're hedging a lot with all of this. But we did just really, really love each other and we really, really believed in what we were doing. Once again, it just shows you like sometimes well we were right. But I think it was all happening quickly. We were kind of figuring out the business, and we figured out that we wanted to launch in a really big way. We thought what's the biggest possible event where we can get the most eyes on this, and really know like do people want this architecturally inspired ice cream sandwich idea? We both had spent a lot of years going to Coachella, and so we thought that's it. We can be a vendor there, we can get in front of a ton of eyeballs and then we'll know if this is going to be a thing or not.
Natasha Case: We begged and begged Coachella to let us sell there. I think they just got so annoyed with us, like literally nagging them nonstop. They were like, “Okay, you can come and sell here, we're going to stick you in the camp ground.” It's like, just get them out of the way. Okay, great we have an event to launch at, but how are we going to launch? Well we, looking at kind of what was going on, kind of in the financial picture, we weren't really going to be able to raise a lot of money get a big loan. Scoop shop was out of the business, because we had nothing to really we didn't have big dollars in the bank just for ourselves. We didn't really understand grocery yet, but what we saw is the whole chef-driven mobile food truck movement was just sort of kicking off. We thought we can really be the pioneering ice cream truck of our generation.
Natasha Case: This is a great opportunity to kind of reach people who might want this in a unique way. We literally Goggled hipster ice cream truck, nothing came up. It was amazing. When does that even happen for any Google search? It was like a truck that sold vinyl records. I'm like oh my God, we have to do this now we really have to do this. We bought a beat up postal van that was masquerading as an ice cream truck. It did not drive, had no engine, it was a POS that did have chrome rims. We bought that worth every penny.
Jennifer Tracy: I love it. How much did you pay for the truck?
Natasha Case: 2,900 bucks. We financed the whole business with my personal credit card, which had a $5,000 limit, which I also don't know why my card and not Freya's, she's good at that, how did she do that? We bought this truck and we towed it to LA. It sat at Freya's mom's house for like three weeks getting complaints from the neighbors it was an eyesore.
Jennifer Tracy: Freya's from here as well?
Natasha Case: Yeah was her mom lives in Glendale. The day comes for Coachella. We barely kind of had the product together. We had to incorporate quickly, so that's why I say like that was our stereotypical like lesbian thing. Instead of moving in together, which we also did, but we also incorporated, it was more like the power lesbian stereotype, like three months in, we've got an LLC. Then we had to get all of our act together for Coachella, which was good. That shows you why doing a real event like that-
Jennifer Tracy: Yes i pushes you to just think, you've got a deadline you've got to do it.
Natasha Case: Totally. Let's figure it out. Then we've got to get to Coachella. You remember the truck doesn't drive. We figured out that if we join AAA platinum, we got one free 200 mile tow. The morning of Coachella, we pretended the truck broke down even though it never drove and they towed us to the desert.
Jennifer Tracy: That is such a great story.
Natasha Case: Strapping.
Jennifer Tracy: That is such a great story. That is so creative.
Natasha Case: You could say that.
Jennifer Tracy: I mean really talking about using all your resources.
Natasha Case: Absolutely.
Jennifer Tracy: What happened at Coachella?
Natasha Case: Coachella, we'll talk about minimum viable product. I mean we had this truck which wasn't even operable, kind of sitting there.
Jennifer Tracy: It was just a shell basically.
Natasha Case: Yeah it was a shell, it was like we hoped for this one day. Then one thing is we did figure out that we wanted to scoop the product to order, because that was just easier to transport it, and easier to build inventory. We also figured out partnering with manufacturers to make our recipes, because we just could not meet the scale of Coachella with making it ourselves in our kitchen. I'm so glad we did that because I'll get to this, but after Coachella when it was like, okay, we're doing this, then we already had manufacturing in place. We had the bare minimum of the product. We had the truck that was really more for charging people's phones then for doing anything. Then we had our friends who we had exchanged concert tickets, for helping us sell, which you can imagine went horribly. I won't say, it was just creative.
Natasha Case: I have no idea what they were doing the whole time. There seemed to be maybe some selling I have no idea. But it was really, really fun, and was perfect because in the camp ground we actually had a captive audience, unlike really the rest of the concert. Because back then in the early days of Coachella, it was really day passes. People weren't there all weekend necessarily, but the campers were there for five days. We could really kind of build a cult following, and there will be mornings like people would wake me up at 7:00 AM because there was a line. There was the guy who wanted his [inaudible 00:24:34] or his oatmeal [cinamoneo 00:24:37] waiting to pay anything for it really.
Jennifer Tracy: That's amazing high in demand.
Natasha Case: Yeah, there's like something happening and we didn't even really make that much money. I think five grand, it seemed like a lot at the time. It paid for getting there. But after Coachella, a friend of mine had said, if it goes well, send me your logo and I'll do a piece on you guys. I thought, okay, I think we're going to keep going. I think we've got something here. I sent him like a jpeg of the logo, not even a vector based file, which is embarrassing for someone with a master's degree in architecture. He posts, he wrote this piece on curved Dan and it said like, if you're like really bored and want something weird, maybe check out this ice cream truck if you have nothing else to do. I was like, thanks Dan for the piece. That was really helpful.
Jennifer Tracy: If you're bored that's hysterical.
Natasha Case: But it went viral. It just shows you it's just more about getting it out there sometimes because then it went from there to eater to apartment therapy to dwell to LA times. The whole ride home I was getting calls from editors, who were picking it up and Freya her phone had died on the last day. I charged it on the way home and when it became alive again she called me and she said, I think we had reserved like Coolhaus on Twitter. Nothing was even there. It was just like let's secure this. She's like, we're getting new followers every three seconds I think we've been hacked. I was like, I don't think that that's hacking. I think this is blowing up. By the time I got home, I think we had five, six, 7,000 followers in the day, which was a huge deal at the time. It was like, there was just so much buzz generated for it.
Natasha Case: What I can say is, you definitely cannot plan to ever have your brand or what you're doing go viral, but if it does, it is the biggest blessing in the world and you just have to like hold on, and make it happen. That's what we did. We used the money from Coachella to fix up the truck so it could drive so the door could open like basics I'm talking super, super basic.
Jennifer Tracy: Then the following year you were actually there with the truck? With it operating? Did you use it in between Coachella so that was your whole business with the truck for the first time when you used?
Natasha Case: Yes, so basically this truck was from April through the whole 2009 through December was the OG truck as we called it, which was the postal van with no power steering with the wheel on the right side, the whole Shebang broke down constantly, constantly. I mean I know more about parts of cars because I have seen them all fall off of that track. Including the steering wheel.
Jennifer Tracy: Not while you were driving I hope.
Natasha Case: Well not while I was but someone else. We had a big event for like a really high profile fashion client and then we started to go to the next location and just came off. The client thought that they had been punked, we wish it was that, but no. That truck, it was like but it tried to survive. Then by the end of the year, we knew that we needed a second truck because we couldn't meet the demand, and this truck had to be like legit like the original truck, it was not permitable really. We did get busted for that and I did have to go to court, the people versus Natasha Case. Yeah, it was an amazing experience. It was pretty much to me I think the level of offense was like comparable to first time DUI, because that's pretty much everyone else who was in this court.
Natasha Case: I didn't know this, but when you've gotten a DUI, and they summon you up before the judge, they read your blood alcohol to the court. There'd be like these little old ladies like Ms. Johnson 2.1 and everyone would go like, oh damn, what were you drinking? It was like so rowdy each time. I'm like this little old lady oh my God. It was a fascinating experience.
Jennifer Tracy: That's hilarious and frightening at the same time.
Natasha Case: I knew that things were going to be okay because my defense, my public defender I guess she was like leaned in to me when they were reading the whatever they're called, the charges I guess on like the truck not having the right kind of sink or not being permitable. She leaned over to me and she's like, so it's ice cream sandwiches. I was like, yeah, she's like, do you do kids parties? I said, yeah. She said, how much do they cost? Five bucks a sandwich. Okay, let's talk. It was like, I think I'm going to be fine. My defender is interested in my business. I think we're going to be okay, and we were. It was like, they just basically said get a proper truck together, we'll kind of like eliminate. Again, we needed the urgency to do it and we did it.
Natasha Case: Then we had a real truck by the beginning of 2010, and then we used that to go to the second year of Coachella and for a ton of other events. But the OG continued to do private, very private catering. I don't know if part of your listenership is the health department, so hopefully not.
Jennifer Tracy: I doubt it. Is the OG truck still around?
Natasha Case: It's somewhere-
Jennifer Tracy: In a museum or?
Natasha Case: It's in the retirement community of cars, but it still could be resuscitated, and I have spoken to a couple auto museums because I think it needs to live on.
Jennifer Tracy: I think it should too. I think the stories of it and everything that it inhabits, inhabited is important.
Natasha Case: Totally.
Jennifer Tracy: This is so exciting. How old were the two of you at this time?
Natasha Case: 25 and 26.
Jennifer Tracy: I'm blown away by that. I'm just blown away by that. I mean I have so many questions. You have this all basically not basically a woman owned two woman CEOs running this company. Then you had to expand it obviously as time went on. How did you start to expand the company? Did you have to hire, I mean, I don't know anything about that. I mean I'm sort of learning a little bit like I have a team now that helps me do this podcast. I could never do it by myself. I know as far as that, I have a producer, I have an editor. But I can't imagine having this big company and having a manufacturer, you must have a PR person.
Natasha Case: It definitely takes a village. I think growing the team is one of the biggest challenges for anyone. It takes years. It takes time to figure out what even that team looks like, what are the roles and responsibilities, and what is the culture you want to make? I think you have to be patient with yourself because you're not going to learn that all in a day. You really do learn it by doing it. I think classes and blogs and books about it can and are often helpful, but there's nothing like living through it. You kind of got to like, let it catch up with you. Now 10 years and I'm 35 and you just, I'm still learning so much all the time and I love that element of it. I think that's actually the thrill is like constantly evolving and growing. But you do then you really in that 10 years you can know a lot about who you want your team to be, and what you're creating for them to thrive in.
Natasha Case: What's the environment? Who are you as a boss and the CEO? Are you the good cop? Are you the bad cop? How do you best share what you're trying to teach or what you're trying to collaborate on? A lot of it does become more clear and you set an intention more, I think this is how I want it to be, instead of like, okay, I'll figure it out. I'm, I'm surviving, I'm getting through. We got through another day. It becomes less of that it becomes much more kind of broader and vision based.
Jennifer Tracy: I like that. When you guys then continued on to have the truck, the two trucks, or you're expanding, and then when did you become brick and mortar?
Natasha Case: Brick and mortar was 2011, which was our Culver City flagship, which we're right next door to which you wanted to record the podcast in because that's where the ice cream is. Just admit it.
Jennifer Tracy: It smells amazing in there. Didn't really want to leave.
Natasha Case: The waffle cones. You can go back after its okay. We opened here in 2011 and we really chose this neighborhood intentionally. I always liked Culver City. There's a ton of artists and architects here. I'd always gone to the galleries. There's a creative, I think, juice to Culver City and it never sounds too far for anyone. It's pretty central, all set and done close to a few different freeways, which is big in LA, easy parking for this shop, and it was up and coming. I mean going back to 2011 like Culver City paid for our mechanical, plumbing, electrical engineering permits because they were so, they were dying to have a brand like us come and be in Culver City. That would not be the case now. Now it's every cool restaurant you got, we have like the barn gardens, amazing wine store next door is a [high-low 00:33:42].
Natasha Case: We have platform down the street, everything in downtown. I mean, it's just endless really, really cool. We took a bet on being pioneers in an up and coming neighborhood, and I think that really paid off. Then we were lucky to have the space next door became available, and that became our whole headquarters, which is amazing. I love being here, and I think ultimately the scoop shop is a huge role that it plays, is not only that it's from a business standpoint of course, and growing your brand, but it's a huge consumer touch point. That is a way that people can interact with us that's different than the truck, and it's different than the grocery store. Or the restaurant that Coolhaus is on the menu or movie theater or however. You really build like that experience. You really tap into the community with the shop. Also it's an innovation center.
Natasha Case: We can test ideas out there, see how people respond to them. Do they connect? Do they buy them? What flavor do they like the best? Who is buying it? What's the profile of this person? I think that hugely strategic in the other two elements of the brand, which is the trucks and the grocery distribution.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow. How many trucks do you have now?
Natasha Case: We have 10. LA, Dallas and New York and who knows more in the future.
Jennifer Tracy: That's incredible. Wow. I'm so impressed. You guys are just killing it on the Coolhaus front. When did you start having the conversation about let's have a baby?
Natasha Case: I think that, let's see. I think Freya and I always knew that we wanted to have a family. Then we were getting to a point where, I want to say maybe around 2014 we you know, started to have more real conversations just about life in general, like also wanting to get a house. That was part of it. We want to get a house, okay, well the house is going to be a place where like what do we want this house to be? How long do we want to be there, and how much space will we need for when our family grows? I think that kind of played into like, okay, now if we're going to get this house and this is a place where we want to start growing our family, well what's the idea there? What's the timeline there? As two moms, you definitely have to be very deliberate about the decision. There's unfortunately a 0% chance that I can impregnate Freya or the other way around.
Natasha Case: But that's kind of what's cool about it. You do have to be very deliberate. I think around then, so that was like maybe 2015 we started taking it more seriously and started to do what's the legwork, how much money is this going to cost, what's kind of the process? We went, I think we went to, I think we started talking about with doctors, but then also a sperm bank and seeing what that was. But then it wasn't like a huge rush, I think then maybe another six or seven months passed by and then we really started to say, okay, let's do this. We tried a few times for Freya, it didn't work out. Then she took like a chill break, and then we tried again summer 2016 and that ended up being Remy.
Jennifer Tracy: That was you?
Natasha Case: Freya carried Remy.
Jennifer Tracy: Freya carried Remy.
Natasha Case: I think what we said which was really important I think, we said there's not ever going to be a perfect time. One thing that's important to know is it's never going to be a perfect time, and we were like, I think we were good about that. We were like, well this is happening or I'm busy here or you're busy there. We just said, you know what, we just got to do this because it's not ever, the stars are not going to align and anyone and you're shaking your head. We just went for it, and it was just so, so cool. I have so much to share about just being a mom and being a boss and being a CEO. I mean it's been much, I could never have even expected the thrill of it all.
Jennifer Tracy: You're glowing. How do you juggle, how do you both juggle being moms and working full time?
Natasha Case: I think that, well one Freya and I had done a lot together, and had really known each other in stressful situations. Growing the business together, hiring employees. I feel like we've had 200 children, some of whom are more babies than Remy no offense to them. But we had seen each other in those moments and sort of we already had understanding for each other of how we react in the 11th hour and whatnot. That was definitely helpful going in, in terms of the decision making process, in terms of just you have to be so deeply partnered with your significant other to do this. That element being a huge unknown, like sometimes it has to be that way. But it not being like taking that off the table was like an alleviator. I think we like have a great partnership, so that's been amazing.
Natasha Case: I think that when you are passionate about what you do and then you have a kid, for me it's made me even more passionate. I really feel like now you're doing it with a different purpose. I always loved doing what I do, but now I'm making like a bad ass ice cream legacy for Remy and that fires me up even more. Makes me want to do even more and be even greater. You think about what you're creating for them. How will they view this? How will they view you as a person in the context of business when they're older? You have that kind of like another set of eyes on you. I think it changes how you conduct yourself and it changes like I definitely the small stuff, you start to sweat it less and you're more focused on the big picture. It's like a shift. Then I think also when you're a parent, you're just very efficient with your time.
Natasha Case: I never understood before having Remy, I was like, how do people do that? They'd have work and then they have the kid, it just seems impossible. Then you have one, you're like, no, well you like get shit done.
Jennifer Tracy: You know how to say no.
Natasha Case: But that's great, yeah. They say like you want something done, give it to a working mom really is true.
Jennifer Tracy: It's so true.
Natasha Case: There's dads out there I'm sure too.
Jennifer Tracy: There's something about that. Someone called me this morning and she was it this morning or yesterday, she's starting her own podcast and I had said, call me, I'll help you. We had a phone conference and anyway, long short it was one of those things where it was a friend. I was at home, it was a Sunday I was with my kid and I said, I'll email my editor and ask this question right now because if I don't do it right now I will forget. It was done, and like she got what she needed and I felt so accomplished. But I've learned having a kid, he's now nine and a half, but I have to do it right then. There's stuff that I saw a meme I think yesterday, if there's an act, something that you need to accomplish that you can do in less than one minute, do it right now. I'm like, oh my God that's my credo.
Natasha Case: It's so true. I think my mom this is how she kind of can weave in the Jewish guilt too? If she asks me to do this and I'm like, I don't she's like, it literally will take 30 seconds. Then you're like it will actually. What's your argument? How do you get out of that one? She's the master of the under a minute.
Jennifer Tracy: It's brilliant.
Natasha Case: For delegation.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes foe delegation. Did you have siblings grow up?
Natasha Case: I do have a little sister.
Jennifer Tracy: She here in LA?
Natasha Case: She is, I'm very lucky. She's here in LA. She's awesome. She is a French teacher.
Jennifer Tracy: Does she babysit?
Natasha Case: She does babysit she's great with kids. She's had a lot of experience with kids. She is teaching French at Santa Monica College right now, which is awesome. She also is really into styling and makeup, so she does a lot of my hair and makeup for photo shoots and whatnot, which is so fun. Then her husband actually works at Coolhaus Pierre, he's a Frenchmen. They're both Francophiles and he is what's his, we just had a title change. He's director of specialty and also analysis guru.
Jennifer Tracy: Awesome. I love that title.
Natasha Case: Then Freya has her sister Clarissa, who's awesome and brother-in-law who's an architect. They're in town, and so we see them all the time. They love watching Remy and so we're very, very lucky having family.
Jennifer Tracy: It's huge, and then you have your parents.
Natasha Case: Yeah both parents and Freya's mom's in LA, we're pretty spoiled on that front.
Jennifer Tracy: That's a huge piece because he's two now, so he's not in school. You just need that help.
Natasha Case: Totally. It's incredible. Just for them to have the love of the extended family and see that as part of their universe is really cool. Freya has another two sisters who aren't here, but they're, I'm sure that's like probably their biggest reason to want to get back to LA
Jennifer Tracy: I'm sure I mean he's like a superstar. He's a rock star. I want to hang out with him. I want to watch him play piano with his grandma.
Natasha Case: And basketball you should see. He's really, really good at basketball. He does like jump shots and moves.
Jennifer Tracy: He can come play with my son who just started on the team at his school and he's like, he can do that thing between his legs. He wears tights, and he's cool. He's got swag.
Natasha Case: Remy would be like literally his mind would be blown he loves older kids, older boys.
Jennifer Tracy: Because Bloom is that way with kids that are older than him. He's like, oh my God, those high schoolers are so cool. That's so amazing. Wow you've really built an incredible, you've architected for yourself an incredible life. Congratulations. That's so beautiful. You're in it, you're doing this thing and you're also doing all this other cool stuff. You were talking about when I walked in, you said, I just wrote a blog post. What was the blog post about?
Natasha Case: For Romper for international women's Day. The kind of mom lifestyle side of Bustle and Bustle we just had a huge campaign with them, with Lexis. They've both been really amazing partners. I do cohost a podcast called start to sail with my friend Aaron [Pantaken 00:43:53] of Ovenly bakeries and that's been awesome. I can definitely appreciate your end of the table. It's just such a, and that one's fun because we're sort of as CEOs and founders talking to other CEOs and founders. That's kind of our angle, sort of a round table discussion. But it's just to put yourself in a situation that could be uncomfortable, like hosting a podcast and then you do it, and you really enjoy it and you see people loving the work you do. It's like, it's why it's so important to like push yourself out of your comfort zone I realized, not just keep doing the same thing all the time.
Jennifer Tracy: But you never have since growing up in Sherman oaks. I mean that's just in your nature it seems. You keep wanting to do different stuff and I love that because it keeps things fresh, and it's such a great thing to model for your son of like, you're not limited, there's no limit. You can try this like, you can try this and sometimes you're going to fall on your face and have to go to court because the thing wasn't permitted. But you just keep going, and it's all good. When is International Women's Day?
Natasha Case: The eighth. But it's the whole month, so don't worry, you've got the whole month to just celebrate women and you celebrate women all the time anyway, that's the point. I think it's good to have these awareness days and months, but ultimately we're here to all be treated as equals and be been given equal opportunity.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes. Oh my gosh. How long have we been talking? Let's see. Yeah, we're almost there. But there was like three more questions I had popped up. Let me ask this. What is that on the board says that's 5, 4, 3, 2, 1; and 5 is excellent and 1 is poor. What are those the rating things for? Is that for work?
Natasha Case: After I leave the room, then my team comes here and rates all the podcast interviewers. You've now been revealed.
Jennifer Tracy: Got it, I'm hoping for a five.
Natasha Case: I think you'll be okay that's for sure.
Jennifer Tracy: At least a solid four.
Natasha Case: Five and a half. That was actually, no, I'm glad you asked. We have been having some, for lack of a sexier word, focus groups here, sexier words. We had four groups come in. We did it by, I think whether they have dairy or nondairy, and different like age demos and those were really the four. Talked to them about our brand and our story and what we're making and just sort of get their feedback, then we did blind taste tests at the end of our different flavors, against like [inaudible 00:46:32] we did knock it out of the park with vanilla. The vanilla is off the charts. People love the cookie dough, and then we did one more, I think the otter chocolate molten. It tested really well, and I think we have that scale therefore answering different things about the product.
Natasha Case: But this is something we want to do a ton more is like really kind of show people behind the curtain, and let them be part of the process of what we're making. Because we were talking to them a lot about like, we want to reinvent other novelties, we want to reinvent the Choco Taco. We want to reinvent the bond bonds. Let's hear what people have to say about that early in the process, and make them feel because they are connected to what we're doing, we're doing this for them, so we should listen to them too.
Jennifer Tracy: I love that. You're really into that, like being out like that starting with even just the Coachella, like, yes, it was a great way to get people's eyes on it, but like you were out in the field literally, literally in the field
Natasha Case: In the dust. No, it's so good to get out there. I tell people like, I try not to be at my desk for more than 50% of the day because answering emails is not at all that it takes, that's one piece. There's other things you can do besides answer emails at your desk. But it's like, especially as the CEO and the founder, because the founder is so connected to the story, it's like telling your story and meeting people like you doing events, business development, sales meetings, whatever it takes like partnerships. It's really that's what I love about my day, is no two days are the same.
Jennifer Tracy: That makes it fun and keeps it changing and fluid, which is who you are. That's so awesome. I think I mean I could talk to you forever, there's so many other questions. Did you guys get married?
Natasha Case: We got married in 2012 in New York City Hall cause it wasn't legal in California.
Jennifer Tracy: Until 2014.
Natasha Case: I think around that. It was weird. I remember the day that it happened, when I came into work, a lot of people at the office were like, kind of crying tears of joy about it. I was just like, yeah, duh. My response was weird. I was like obviously this should be the case.
Jennifer Tracy: You're like I'm already married bitches.
Natasha Case: Then we were really glad that we thought at first like then it became legal here. We thought we'd have to go get married again in California. But no, you can only have a marriage license in one state. Cause otherwise you could be like a fraudulent person going around marrying people everywhere.
Jennifer Tracy: Which I'm sure people do.
Natasha Case: I'm sure people do this. Then we were so relieved to not have to-
Natasha Case: Jennifer Tracy Go through the holes.
Natasha Case: But yeah, we're married. Freya is not on the day to day anymore. She has a gin company called Future Gen, you should talk to her she has some good stories. Also is head of ops for a tea company called Tea Drops. She has a lot of stuff going on. Future Gen is the first full woman vertical, like the distillers woman, the distributor is a partner owner, Mary Bartlett, who's very well known in the bar community. Did the botanical, Freya the branding. It's all women owned, which is like that does not happen. But she's still, I joke that she's the first lady of Coolhaus, because she's not on the payroll, but she has my ear. She knows all the big stuff that's going on, which is a lot, there's a lot going on right now. It's intense.
Jennifer Tracy: What else? What's one thing you could tell me that you haven't told me that's going on right now?
Natasha Case: The grocery business has grown tremendously. We're in about 7,000 stores. Everything from a whole foods to a Publix to a safe way to launching in Ralph's this year, launching in Vaughn's pavilions this year. We're launching dairy free, so five sandwiches and eight pints, and seven new dairy pines that are amazing flavors like milk and cookie crumb, take the cannoli socket, [Mamamcho 00:50:27] Mochi. We have all that growing and then we're looking for next year, like actually launching new novelties.
Jennifer Tracy: You were talking about lithium bond bond things. Oh my gosh that's so exciting. Is there a kitchen back here where you experiment or where do you experiment?
Natasha Case: We do have a kitchen, back of house and then we have like an offsite facility, like 40 minutes from here where we can really test things. It's amazing. We're very fortunate to have that whole setup.
Jennifer Tracy: So great I love it. I'm going to ask you three questions that I ask. Okay so what is something you've changed your mind about recently?
Natasha Case: I think I've been thinking a lot about there's been so much conversation around women in business and empowerment and we're not getting enough of the dollars and how do we change things? I've really been thinking a lot about what is the discussion among women and where do men enter this discussion? Because half of the population is men, so men have to embrace this idea as well and treat women as equals, and see them as equals. We both have sons you and I, it's like the next generation of men. It's like, it can't be a conversation only with women. You don't want to like self-get a wise, so I've just been realizing like there's some conversation that I think are really good to have with only women in the room. But ultimately you have to figure out as part of the long and short game is how do we incorporate men?
Natasha Case: That absolutely has to be a conversation. Then really partnering in the right ways. I mentor a lot of people, and I think I've heard a lot of women say like, I feel bad at this point taking money from men as male investors. Should I only be raising money from women? It's like, look, you're the entrepreneur. Your job is to find the best, most strategic dollars. It is not your responsibility to eliminate the men from that conversation. What we want is this next generation to have more female investors and more women to I write checks and the end of the other side of the table. That's something, I think that's just been ongoing, kind of thought process. It's just something really, really good to be aware of right now.
Jennifer Tracy: I love that. Just earlier today I was talking to my creative producer and we're gathering our data because we are presenting to a bunch of sponsors in the next couple of weeks. She said, “Wait a minute.” I said, “What?” We were on the phone and she sent me the screenshot of our listenership of the last month or whatever, and it was a pie chart and 51% of the listeners were men. It wasn't that way when I first started. I'm like, wait a minute. I said, “Is that perverts that are like clicking on it and thinking it's one thing?” Then she's like, “It can't be because they're listening to multiple,” there's so many. I said, “Do you think we're actually like educating some men that are interested in what we're actually talking about?” We don't know. We have to more discovery on that, but it was shocking. She said 51% is male. She's like, I got to look into more of this. Then I had to leave because I was coming to meet with you. But I thought, what if we are causing at least a ripple in the water?
Natasha Case: Yeah, that's great. I think that should absolutely be one of the ultimate goals.
Jennifer Tracy: I mean, I hope that that's fine. I have a friend of mine, her husband listens to the podcast. He's like, “Yeah I listen when I'm running.” He's like, “You're doing great.” He's just super supportive thinks it's awesome.
Natasha Case: That's exactly the goal. It's like-
Jennifer Tracy: He has a daughter and a son. He's like infusing that. I love that you said that because that is my goal as well on all levels. How do you define success?
Natasha Case: I define success by, I think it's a combination of like flexibility and control. I think like for me, what makes me feel successful is knowing like, I have control over my day or if I want to go on a vacation somewhere, I can do it. I'm in the driver's seat of how my day and month and year looks like. That is like, I think a very, very powerful tool because it allows you to be doing the work and be kind of like, you're in a passionate mode, you're going all out. But then you say, I need a break and I need to go and play tennis with friends, or I want to go and just like get out of town or whatever that may be. Again, and that's something that's come to me with growing this business over the years. As time has gone on more and more, even though things are really, really intense all the time, I have built a great team.
Natasha Case: I trust them to run things when I can't be here or I can set it up so that it's going to be okay when I'm gone or just enjoy yourself and take that hour or two break in the day and come back, take like a mental respite, like don't feel guilty. That to me is like, that's what comes with like succeeding.
Jennifer Tracy: You're making me think of another point. Do you have set hours that you work every day so that you can then be home with your family?
Natasha Case: I do try to get home to Remy in the early evening because when you have a young kid, you only have a few hours with them. I live really close to the office. I'm very lucky I can walk, I can ride my bike or drive. It doesn't take me that long and I'm not flustered with a terrible commute when I come home. Then really we can get like a good three hours with him. He goes to bed at like 8:30 or so. Then I do often work again when he goes to bed. But I try to keep those three hours not on email and stuff anyway, cause he won't allow it. He'll come over and he'll start imitating you on the computer. The other day he was circling his finger over the pad tracker and then pressed down really hard, and he opened an episode of my podcast. I don't even know how he did that.
Jennifer Tracy: They just know they intuitively understand the technology, it's kind of crazy.
Natasha Case: I'm laughing thinking about him doing it. But yeah. Then also I do sometimes kind of work and hang out with him in the morning. Because I don't think you do have to take time at home sometimes to get certain types of tasks done. It's not only about like office hours, there's flexibility in today's world. People expect things can be done from anywhere.
Jennifer Tracy: Which is lovely. But also it can be bad. I've talked about this on the show before. There've been times when my son will say, “Mom, put your phone down and be with me.” I'm like, you're right I'm sorry.
Natasha Case: Remy will just come and remove the phone and put it away. Like stop it.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay lightning round. Ocean or desert?
Natasha Case: Ocean.
Jennifer Tracy: Favorite junk food?
Natasha Case: I love these they're not junk foods I feel bad saying it. But nutter puffs, which is like from pop chips. Remy loves them. I love them. They're like perfect.
Jennifer Tracy: Movies or Broadway show?
Natasha Case: Movies I've never been to a Broadway show.
Jennifer Tracy: What?
Natasha Case: That's something for the bucket list.
Jennifer Tracy: Especially as he gets older you guys can go do that together.
Natasha Case: Totally.
Jennifer Tracy: Daytime sex or nighttime sex.
Natasha Case: Kind of into daytime.
Jennifer Tracy: Especially after you have a kid.
Natasha Case: It's just like I'm too tired.
Jennifer Tracy: Texting or talking?
Natasha Case: Talking.
Jennifer Tracy: Cat person or dog person.
Natasha Case: Dog we have two, Hamilton and Scoob. Mini schnauzer and [inaudible 00:58:06], they're very sweet.
Jennifer Tracy: Have you ever worn a unit heart?
Natasha Case: Yeah many hundreds right now.
Jennifer Tracy: Shower or bathtub?
Natasha Case: We're going to redo the master bath and then I plan on having a really good bathtub situation. The House as it is right now, we have three baths, which is great, but they're all, they're not like a luxurious bath scene. When we redo, I will become, I plan on being one of those people who have the whole like bass the shenanigans, with all the stuff and the candles [crosstalk 00:58:42] for sure.
Jennifer Tracy: Ice Cream or chocolate?
Natasha Case: I think chocolate ice cream.
Jennifer Tracy: On a scale of one to 10, how good are you at ping pong?
Natasha Case: I would say eight and a half.
Jennifer Tracy: Impressive.
Natasha Case: That sounded low to me. We're a house of the athletes.
Jennifer Tracy: Most people answer like four. They don't really know. Sort of like four, that's usually the average answer. What is your biggest pet peeve?
Natasha Case: Okay, so this is one that could be helpful because if people follow up and they want to reach out to me, I'm totally down to try to give people advice, but like write in with like a very specific question. Don't write it and be like, I'm trying to figure it all out, can you help me? I wish that I could, but like I cannot do anything with that.
Jennifer Tracy: If you could push a button and it would create 10 years of world peace, but it would also place a hundred year ban on all beauty products, would you push it?
Natasha Case: Yeah. I do love a good lip color and all that, but world peace and I've been thinking about the environment so much lately, and I really hope that we, for our next generation create a world they can live in.
Jennifer Tracy: My son just went to the Santa Monica Aquarium. I didn't even know there was one. He came back for a field trip. He came back quoting me all these stats about do you know how many plastic bottles this? I just thought, I know I've heard that before. But coming from his mouth, it just gutted me.
Natasha Case: My friend Amber, we were having dinner and she was saying, she keeps imagining this conversation with her kids when the environment is really, really beyond where it is today in a bad way. Hopefully not. But if it is, and when they say, did you know how bad it was? Then she's going to get kind of like squeamish and like, but did you know? She'll say, yeah. They'll say, well, what did you do? If you really didn't have enough to say about what you did, like are you good person? I'm like, I totally can relate to that. How could we ever explain this to them? It's a powerful thing.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, it is super power choice invisibility, ability to fly or super strength?
Natasha Case: What's the strength like to push a car?
Jennifer Tracy: Anything you want, it's super strength. I guess like Hulk, incredible Hulk.
Natasha Case: Of those three I'd go for the fly. Go to Japan have a really good Sushi dinner.
Jennifer Tracy: Solid. Okay this is the weird question. Would you rather have six fingers on both hands or a belly button that looks like foreskin?
Natasha Case: I mean I don't really wear a lot of halter tops, so I guess you just can hide the belly button. One piece, bathing suit.
Jennifer Tracy: You could scoop more scoops with an extra finger.
Natasha Case: Just imagine every time people notice there's six, their eyes kind of open wide for a second. They try to look away like they didn't notice like you just get used to that I guess. Or just tell people in advance. I'm meeting you for this interview I have 12 total fingers, just don't even think it's weird when I see you. See you soon.
Jennifer Tracy: She put her hands on the table when she said that.
Natasha Case: To show that I actually do have six fingers on each hand.
Jennifer Tracy: What was the name of your first pet?
Natasha Case: Frank.
Jennifer Tracy: What was the name of the street you grew up on?
Natasha Case: [inaudible 01:02:29] Is that my porn name?
Jennifer Tracy: Frank Cortez?
Natasha Case: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: That's good.
Natasha Case: Or I guess we moved when I was nine. Camino de Solana.
Jennifer Tracy: That's good too.
Natasha Case: That's the one. That's my alter porn ego.
Jennifer Tracy: De Solana oh man. She is like a Flamenco dancer and she has sequins. Oh my God I want to know her I want to go to her show.
Natasha Case: I would just have to tell one funny anecdote to wrap it up please. That I had Uber driver this morning who picked me up in a sob, which was kind of fun. I fit in one of those a long time. Then he had like this pillow in the backseat that was bedazzled, it was totally like every rhinestone and it was like before I even when I opened the door you would see all the like reflections of the light, like whoa, kind of shock you. It was like a disco ball. Then I like told him I liked his sob and then I was looking at the pillow and then he kind of was like I think he was talking to himself the whole ride. I was thinking, God, it's such a fine line between like a creative spirit and like a crazy. I really like, I couldn't know the whole time, and respect either way. He was doing his job and he did a great job getting me to where I needed to go, but it was just like, yeah that pillow and I realized you can totally be obviously be both. But it was kind of a wild journey.0
Jennifer Tracy: That's like me and the crazy six finger foreskin on your belly button question. You could just go, she is crazy.
Natasha Case: That's a good one. Does everyone get that same exact question or is it like different?
Jennifer Tracy: No, there's another one. Do you want the alternate? The alternate is, would you rather have, I try to mix it up each episode. Would you rather have a penis where your tailbone is or a third eye? It's a literal third eye.
Natasha Case: A literal like an acupuncture needle. I liked the one I got I'll just leave it at that.
Jennifer Tracy: Natasha, thank you so much. Such a pleasure, oh my gosh, this is awesome. Thanks so much for listening guys. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Natasha. If you would like to go to the website and check out all the show notes you can. I also have transcriptions of the show made for every show, so you can see that. It's written out just like an interview, and any links to anything that we talked about. Natasha's Coolhaus website, her social media handles. If you want to get in touch with her, you can. While you're there, please subscribe to the show. It really helps if you subscribe to the show. But ultimately I'm just grateful that you're listening and I hope that this show is helping you in some way laugh, feel a little bit less alone. Just enjoy this hour with me and my guests.
Jennifer Tracy: Next week on the show we have Wendy Miller, who was the head of programming at Playboy television for seven years, and she is funny. She is so funny. Now she has this podcast called sex Ed the musical. Oh my gosh it's so great. I can't wait to share that with you guys next week. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you soon.