Scoop Dreams: Alumna Turns Childhood Memories Into Business

Scoop Dreams: Alumna Turns Childhood Memories Into Business

By Bri Phillips

Business alumna Juliana Ortiz has launched a successful ice cream business, Cali Cream, and has helped craft 55 different flavors, including her childhood favorite, chocolate. Photo by Alicia Lores

For Juliana Ortiz, ice cream is more than just a dessert.

Ortiz still gets nostalgic recalling childhood trips to Rite Aid to grab Thrifty's ice cream with her parents. Her go-to flavor was chocolate, and it brought her comfort every time she ate it.

Ortiz cherished the little things. Going for chocolate ice cream with her mom and dad may have seemed ordinary to others. But for her, growing up in a low-income family, it was always a special moment.

"Ice cream was always a reward," Ortiz said. "I had to do something good to get it. Every time I had ice cream, it was always that sense of accomplishing something, even if it was something small."

Now, as a business owner, Ortiz looks for special moments like these through customers at her own ice cream shop. Entrepreneurship was never something on her radar, but that changed at Cal State San Marcos. It was a combination of fond memories of eating ice cream with her family and realizing that ice cream shops have the happiest clientele.

"No one goes to an ice cream shop angry, right?" Ortiz said. "Customers are either really happy because they're with family or friends or they've had a really bad day and they want a pick-me-up."

Since graduating from CSUSM in 2018 with a degree in marketing, Ortiz has launched a successful ice cream business, Cali Cream, with her husband, Ken Schulenburg. Ortiz has helped craft 55 different flavors, including her childhood favorite, chocolate.

Quality is paramount. Cali Cream ice cream is made with 16% butterfat, compared with an average of 12% for most ice cream companies.

"We get it shipped from the farm to us within seven days," Ortiz said. "It's only seven days from cow to cone."

Since opening steps from Moonlight Beach in Encinitas in 2016, Cali Cream has expanded to include a bakery and a second ice cream location in San Diego's downtown Gaslamp Quarter. Cali Cream also has been featured at special events like Comic-Con International and concerts at the Rady Shell at Jacobs Park.

"I don't know if there was ever a moment where the lightbulb went off," Ortiz said, "but I think there are times where you're in a place in your life where you just say, 'Hey, I want to do something different.' "

Ortiz came to CSUSM looking for a change, intending to create a better life for her daughter, Leslie.

When she was 16, Ortiz learned that she was pregnant. Telling her parents was difficult, and she didn't want them to be disappointed in her or think it would keep her from having a successful future.

"It was extremely hard," she said. "You never want to disappoint your parents. And you never want to do anything that they think might hold you back. Sometimes kids make mistakes. I've learned from it, but I think I've turned it around. I also believe that there are certain things that just kind of happen for a reason, and I feel like she's my biggest motivator. We've grown up together."

Leslie was born prematurely, weighing just 4 pounds. Ortiz was facing adult responsibilities at a young age, but Leslie was a constant source of inspiration and motivation.

"At that time, it was so difficult to try to navigate everything," Ortiz said. "But I ended up just striving forward again. I'm not going to be a statistic. I'm not going to let something like that hold me back. I needed to give my family - and I needed to give my daughter - a good example."

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When Ortiz was introduced to Rebeca Perren, a CSUSM marketing professor and former faculty mentor in the College of Business Administration's mentorship program, she was clear that going back to school at age 30 was all for Leslie. And Perren was excited by the possibility of helping Latina students because when she was a student, she rarely saw people like her in the classroom.

"I wanted to help students who were like me," Perren said. "And just by chance, Juliana was the student who was assigned to me. I got to know Juliana and her story, not just as a first-generation college student, but as a mother. She had a teenage daughter and she wanted to get her degree before her daughter went off to college. I had children myself, and we connected on so many different levels."

Perren and Ortiz would meet to discuss class assignments and the struggles of being Latina in higher education. Ortiz saw that Perren regularly met with other business students, and she suggested that they all come together and start gathering as a group.

Perren invited Josefina Espino and Chris Santos to join, and they all bonded instantly. They met twice a month, usually at the campus Starbucks, and talked about how they pictured their lives after college.

The mentor group evolved into CoBA's Latino Business Student Association, with Perren serving as the faculty adviser for seven years. Espino remembers when Ortiz revealed to the group that she was interested in entrepreneurship and wanted to start an ice cream business. Ortiz and Espino even used her business idea for a research project in a marketing class taught by professor Kristin Stewart.

Starting a path to entrepreneurship was exciting, but also nerve-racking for Ortiz. She didn't know how she would balance being a student and mother while quitting her job as a marketing coordinator at Pacific Records, Inc. in San Diego.

"I remember one of the most important conversations I had to have with Juliana was about being generous to herself," Perren said. "She, of course, had so much to offer, and one of the most difficult decisions she had to make was investing in herself. She is such a generous and loyal person. It felt difficult to let go of some of her commitments and give back to herself."

Now, as an entrepreneur, Ortiz shows her generosity in the creative ways she connects with her customers and employees. When a customer comes into Cali Cream and talks about an ice cream flavor that holds significance for them, Ortiz goes out of her way to make it.

"Ice cream is such an emotional product," Ortiz said. "We've made special request ice cream orders, because maybe it's a birthday present or it's their parents' favorite. It's so cool because I get to be the decision-maker. I can say yes or no, but if someone were to ask any other ice cream company, the answer is always going to be no. But my goal is to always make people happy."

One of the most rewarding parts of Ortiz's job is supporting her employees through college. It's her way of giving back. A photo wall in the Encinitas location displays the logos of the colleges that her employees are attending. Ortiz even established a rule that if an employee performs well during the summer, they are guaranteed a job when they come home from college.

"I remember going to Cali Cream and seeing that the tip jar said 'college fund' on it," Perren said. "It's really awesome to see how college is built into the company culture. It's great when you see our alumni not only make a difference in their own life, but also how she can inspire and create social mobility in her family and in our community."

Juliana Ortiz

Major at CSUSM: Business marketing

Graduation year: 2018

Company: Cali Cream

Website: calicreamicecream.com

Founded: 2016

Number of employees: 35-80 (depending on the season)

Talking Business With Juliana Ortiz

What's the best advice you received about starting a business?

Do what feels right for you and don't be afraid to take risks. Not every risk is going to be successful, but there's certain risks that are very rewarding. I think if you do your work and research time, then it minimizes the damage.

What advice would you give budding entrepreneurs?

I would say go for it. I think you never want to regret not making a decision because of the fear of failure.

What's the greatest challenge in starting your own business?

The greatest challenge for me was trying to understand the process for getting health permits.

Knowing what you know now, is there anything you would have done differently?

For us, it's a weather-based ice business. I have to look at weather for the next week and for the next couple of days to see how it impacts our business. That's something that most people don't think about.

I would also make sure to work with a team and ensure that if there's a new product, we have to educate them. If your team's not good and if they're not educated, it falls back on you. They also don't want to be put in a position where they don't know how to communicate to their guests.

What are the qualities of a good entrepreneur?

With changes in just about anything, whether it's regulation or COVID, you have to be able to adapt and you have to be able to transition.

Media Contact

Bri Phillips, Communications Specialist

[email protected]