Data built a $250k Ice Cream Shop
What happens when a Head of Data Science from Airbnb opens an ice cream shop? You get a store that had 1,000 potential customers before making a single scoop, flavors tested through Instagram with 10,000 views per post, and a neighborhood hub that became the go-to spot for a 9,000 person community.
Elena Grewal opened Elena's on Orange in November 2022, bringing her data scientist mindset to the world of ice cream. Within just seven months, this small neighborhood shop hit $250,000 in annual revenue – all because Elena understood exactly which metrics actually matter.
Let's dive into how Elena transformed from leading 200 people at Airbnb to serving up data-driven scoops in New Haven, Connecticut.
The Story of Elena's on Orange
Before Elena's on Orange
In 2020, Elena moved back to her hometown of New Haven, CT where she started working on consulting projects, launched a consultancy for government and candidates for public office, and became a lecturer on data science at Yale. This was all after being the Head of Data Science at Airbnb where she led a team of over 200 people.
Even with all of this, Elena still wanted to do something good for her community but wasn't sure what it would look like. When she saw an abandoned corner shop near East Rock Park (the large natural landmark and public park that gives the surrounding neighborhood its name), she immediately recognized an opportunity to create something the area was missing.
While living in San Francisco and working at Airbnb, Elena loved going on walks and grabbing an ice cream cone from a truck called Twirl & Dip - a simple operation serving just two flavors: vanilla and chocolate. This abandoned corner store had a similar strategic location that could serve as a natural community hub.
For context, "East Rock" refers to both a large rock formation with a park at its base and the residential neighborhood surrounding it in New Haven. The East Rock neighborhood is small and walkable, home to about 9,000 people - many of them Yale graduate students and faculty. It has an old school feel with small bakeries, coffee shops, and restaurants throughout. East Rock Park sits on the north side of the neighborhood and is where everyone gathers when it's warm - there are basketball courts, a playground, and the namesake rock formation that offers views over the entire city and Long Island Sound.
What Elena noticed was that despite being a community hotspot, there weren't any convenient places to grab a treat while enjoying the park. The nearest coffee shop was half a mile away, and everything else was even farther. The abandoned corner shop sat just a block from the park - the perfect location to give the community a place to hang out and enjoy an ice cream cone, just like she used to in San Francisco.
The Opening Journey
Everyone loves ice cream, so opening this ice cream shop had to be smooth sailing, right?
Elena originally applied to have a parking requirement eliminated and an alcohol license so they could serve wine during the winter months. After proposing this and presenting to the New Haven Board of Zoning Appeals, Elena was approved for both.
However, some nearby residents and businesses weren’t thrilled about the alcohol license.
So much so that one of the businesses sued Elena for wrongfully being approved for an alcohol license.
This immediately caught the attention of local media outlets like the New Haven Independent. The coverage was a mixed blessing - while it created awareness about the upcoming shop, it also stirred controversy.
Elena eventually settled the dispute and gave up on serving wine, but she did end up incorporating some convenience store items like toothbrushes just as the previous store in that location did. She even mentioned in an interview that she once had a customer buy an ice cream and a toothbrush at the same time. #dentalcare
With setting up a physical location and being sued, it took about a year for Elena's ice cream shop to open. That didn't stop Elena from gaining momentum in a clever way.
The Data-Driven Approach
Most people opening a shop just put a "Coming Soon!" sign on the door. Elena did that but added something better - a QR code linking to a survey.
The survey explained that an ice cream shop was coming to town and asked questions like "What flavors do you want?", "Do you have any dietary restrictions?", and "What's your email?" Just by having this QR code on the door, Elena collected responses from 1,000 people before even opening.
Before making her first ice cream cone, she already had customer feedback and a list of potential customers. This data-gathering approach didn't stop once the shop opened - it became core to the business.
Mind you, Elena has a Masters in Economics and a PhD in education and was the Head of Data Science for Airbnb. Data comes naturally to Elena and it shows with this ice cream shop.
Elena was able to talk to other local restaurants and shops to estimate foot traffic that the corner store received and figure out the potential revenue just from that. This gave her a highly vetted target addressable market and confidence that this ice cream shop was viable.
Her data scientist approach shines through everything the ice cream shop does - from how she selected the shop's location to their weekly "Test Kitchen" flavor experiments. This community-driven feedback loop is constantly generating new data that Elena and her team can analyze. They examine not just revenue, profits, and costs, but also customers served per hour, seasonality patterns, how community events (like graduations) affect sales, and even the impact of weather.
I interviewed Elena in the middle of February and it was an oddly warm day the day before. There was a line out the door that day and Elena's response was essentially "Feels crazy, but makes sense."
Elena opened her ice cream shop in November 2022, and by June 2023, thanks to this data-driven community approach, she hit $250k in annual revenue.
Growth Strategies of Elena's on Orange
1. Community
The store's location brings in a ton of foot traffic since it's so close to East Rock Park. If you want to hang out at the park, the ice cream shop is right there waiting for you as you leave. It's basically the perfect spot for a community hangout that sells cold treats on a hot day.
As someone who lives in the New Haven area, it's more than just convenience. If you want to meet up with someone in the neighborhood, it's usually at one of the coffee shops or Elena's on Orange. This didn't just happen through location - the community has given her shop great reviews on Google. If you're just looking for good ice cream nearby and you see that the local spot has over 160 great reviews, it's a no-brainer to go there.
2. Instagram
Elena's approach to Instagram shows her data focus perfectly. Their account has over 7,000 followers - impressive for a neighborhood of just 9,000 people. The profile highlights "New Flavor Weds" and features "Test Kitchen" stories where the community gets directly involved in product development.
Unlike Twirl & Dip's simple two-flavor approach, Elena and her staff create new flavors almost every Wednesday for the community to try. It's become a weekly ritual for locals who provide immediate feedback on what works. When I interviewed Elena on a Thursday, I still got to try their test flavor (who knew cinnamon ice cream could actually be good??).
With them posting their own content that averages about 10,000 views each post and customers sometimes posting viral content featuring their ice cream, it's hard to not see Elena's on Orange if you're locally in Connecticut and on Instagram. Similar to the Blank Mason deep dive, people are posting about Elena's on Orange all the time and tagging them.
3. Media
Local media for local stores is sneaky powerful, even when the press might not be great for you at first. According to Elena, even though the local press wasn't always super positive about the store, it still brought a lot of awareness. Maybe the saying "there's no such thing as bad press" has some truth to it - especially for a local business trying to establish itself in a community.
Her store is a great example of how understanding your business levers makes you almost unstoppable - when you know what makes your business tick, you can adjust with precision. Want certain numbers to go up? Do this. Need to improve efficiencies? Here's the number to focus on.
You can watch countless data points for your business, but Elena's success shows that knowing the key ones - especially those connected to your community's desires - is a genuine superpower.