Where Business Dreams Became a Reality

Student entrepreneurs get support to launch their businesses, connect with mentors

By BoNhia Lee

Janel Haas always wanted to work for herself.

She was into floral design as a high schooler, so she thought she might want to be a florist. But she left that idea behind and considered opening a bar since she enjoyed her time working at Red Robin. But bars are hard and there’s the liability thing, she says, so she abandoned that idea, too.

The Craig School of Business alumna decided ice cream was her happy place — and Jay’s Specialty Ice Cream truck was born.

“Everyone likes ice cream. Who doesn’t like ice cream? It makes people happy,” Haas says.

Smiles abound with her gourmet, handcrafted ice cream flavors like Ba-Nilla-Fer, Nutter Chip-A-Roo and Coconut Almond Joy, though Jay’s most popular flavor is good ol’ Oreo Delight, described on its website as being “spun with every Oreo addict in mind.”

For Fresno State fans, there’s the Red Wave, strawberry ice cream mixed with blueberries and white chocolate chips. Or try saucy scoops like Triple Crown Plus, vanilla ice cream with Whoppers, Twix, Butterfinger and a little bit of Crown Royal liquor.

Jay’s blue truck or trailer is a familiar sight at Fresno State, where the alumna has scooped ice cream since 2015 when she first started participating in Vintage Days, then at other events and student activities in the years that followed.

The trailer was parked by the Resnick Student Union during the 50th Vintage Days, where ice cream flights, shakes, cones and cups were served over the annual three-day festival. Other community vendors included the always popular Country Faire Cinnamon Rolls, Dutch Bros coffee and drinks, FURY Hot Chicken food truck, and Loving Seed, a vintage trailer that serves healthy food options like acai bowls and juices.

Student organizations also sell food every year as a major fundraiser. The Magkaisa Filipino Club sold pancit and lumpia, Sigma Phi Epsilon sold tri-tip sandwiches and Cru sold chicken kabobs.

Alumna Janel Haas’ (right) love for ice cream came from her family tradition of making homemade ice cream for special occasions – the old school way with rock salt in the hand-churned maker. Her blue trailer has become a popular stop for Vintage Days visitors in recent years.

Jay’s, Janel’s nickname, has been at Vintage Days every year except during COVID when Vintage Days went virtual for two years. She recalls one year when she didn’t get her vendor confirmation and says she was “crushed.” A quick phone call revealed that it was a mistake and Jay’s was indeed a vendor.

“I’m very thankful to Fresno State for calling me out to cater things. It’s fantastic when people reach out and say ‘I hear you’re an alum,’ and they are intrigued about my business,” Haas says. “I enjoy that they like learning where I started and where I am at now. I only spent two years at Fresno State. I got a lot out of my business classes. They were the best two years of college for me.”

Haas went to Central High School, then to Fresno City College before transferring to Fresno State where she majored in business administration with an option in entrepreneurship. Her class project during junior year centered on creating a business. She had to write a business plan for her final senior project, and she started with an idea for an ice cream store before changing it to a food truck.

Why ice cream? In addition to the frozen dessert making people happy, Haas’ love of ice cream came from a family tradition of making homemade ice cream for family events the old school way with rock salt in the hand-churned maker.

“I’m appreciative of a lot of the professors who would just let me talk about ice cream. I was like, ‘I really like ice cream.’ They were like, ‘That’s an intriguing idea,” Haas says. “Sometimes they looked at me like I was crazy. Food trucks weren’t a thing then. It wasn’t a big thing so there were a few people who were skeptical of what I wanted to do.”

But she did her research, networked with local business owners through the Lyles Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and got valuable mentorship from Dr. Timothy Stearns, the center’s director at the time. She says her business courses taught her what she needed to know, the focus of her idea and marketing, advertising and sales.

The Lyles Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Fresno State helps students from all majors develop their business ideas into reality.

Students can work on their business ideas to see who their potential customers can be and how they can source their product, says Dr. Emil Milevoj, the Lyles Center’s executive director. They figure out how to price their product, test out their marketing strategies by engaging with potential customers and work with mentors who can help them advance their ideas or answer questions as they further develop their business concepts, he says.

The center has a Student Hatchery that offers students office space, including meeting rooms and classroom space and the use of technology and office equipment as they operate and grow their businesses. They also get one-on-one coaching and mentoring support.

“The goal is to help students advance their ideas as fast as possible with the right support to make sure no stone is left unturned,” Milevoj says.

Haas graduated in 2012 and bought her first commercial ice cream making machine and started experimenting with flavors. She shared creations with her taste testers — family and friends. It comes down to experimentation and modifying the recipe, Haas says. You basically throw everything in there that you want to eat until eventually you figure out, for example, how many nuts you should add to a three gallon bucket of ice cream so that you get a nut in almost every bite of pistachio ice cream, she says.

A year later, she started selling ice cream, then, in 2014, she participated in her first food truck event at Central High. Since then, she’s added a trailer so she and her handful of employees can sell at multiple events over a weekend. She added a push cart for easy access to indoor events just before the COVID-19 pandemic shut everything down. And now, a decade after starting her business, Haas plans to finally open that store in northwest Fresno.

“I don’t know what I was for sure expecting things to look like after 10 years,” Haas says. “I was like let’s just get through this week and let’s get through this month. OK, we’ve made it past year one and year two … it’s so much more and it’s rewarding, and I’m really glad I went this route to be a business major and make my own path.”

– BoNhia Lee is a communications specialist at Fresno State.