Serving Up Sweet Treats with Asian Flair: Kremee Delights Tulsans with the Help of TEDC Creative Capital

Table of Contents:

An Unexpected Swerve into Soft Serve
Pursuit of a Sweet Passion
Opening a New Kind of Ice Cream Shop
Bringing the Details Together for Their Business
Launching Kremee Breeds New Challenges
Finding Local Business Education Resources
Future Dreams to Dish Up Happiness

Tasty soft-serve ice cream with a twist? Yes, please! Delightful creations mixing traditional American and Asian flavors are what’s on the menu at Kremee. With entrepreneurial education from TEDC Creative Capital, owners Trisha and Harry Dinh have pushed past the hurdles of new business ownership to delight Tulsans with delicious treats.

An Unexpected Swerve into Soft Serve 

Both Trisha and Harry started their careers in fields wildly different than serving up sweets in their own storefront business. Harry came to the U.S. ten years ago as an international student to study the petroleum industry and earned a degree in quantitative finance from the University of Tulsa. He then moved into the software industry. “I’m still working full-time remotely” he says, “and my wife is running the show at Kremee full-time.”

For Trisha, Kremee is a business born of her passion for cooking, but it wasn’t what she expected to be doing. Like Harry, she came to the U.S. with her family in 2010. The two of them met at the University of Tulsa, where she was studying finance and accounting. She worked at several banks as an analyst, but she always had a love for cooking and making desserts for herself, her family, and friends.

Trisha spent her free time experimenting with flavors, studying YouTube videos on baking new dishes, and making sweet treats for those she loved. “Earlier this year, I started thinking about bringing my passion to business and hopefully to more people in the Tulsa community,” Trisha says.

Pursuit of a Sweet Passion

Harry and Trisha’s passion for food in general, and dessert specifically, led them on a journey to explore new foods and ingredients. They traveled, tried different desserts, and dreamed of what their unique contribution to the Tulsa community could be. They envisioned opening a dessert shop that leaned into their cultural heritage.

“But we were never serious about it until Trisha started making a lot of samples and inviting friends and family members to try them,” says Harry. “A lot of people said that we should open the shop, and we just like joking about it. Then, one day, it became a serious conversation.”

One conversation led to another for the Dinhs, and they became very committed to their plan. “One thing led to another,” they say. “And now we are here.”

Opening a New Kind of Ice Cream Shop

For the Dinhs, “here” is Kremee — which dishes up soft serve ice cream and other sweets with both traditional American flavors such as vanilla and chocolate, as well as flavors inspired by the Dinhs’ Asian heritage, such as taro and matcha, which have proved popular with Tulsans.

“We knew that we wanted to open an Asian-style dessert shop because, first of all, we saw that it was something missing in Tulsa,” says Harry. “We always had to go a very far distance to find it. Our idea is to bring the unique flavors and experience of Asian desserts to Tulsa and to international people living here who might miss their country’s flavors.”

With international desserts in mind, the Dinhs began thinking about what they specifically wanted to offer, and they landed on soft-serve ice cream—something they both enjoyed eating. “There are not many soft serve places in Tulsa,” says Harry. “This gave us an idea about the menu we could offer.”

One selection they serve up is taiyaki, a Japanese pancake. “It’s very special, and it’s a favorite of Trisha’s,” says Harry. As they taste-tested the taiyaki and soft serve flavors, they found a mix of what people liked and added it to their menu. They formed their LLC for Kremee in January 2024 and began looking for a place they could call home for their storefront shop.

Bringing the Details Together for Their Business

It took three months to find a location, the Dinhs say. But when they saw an opening next to Sky Zone, the trampoline park and entertainment spot, they knew they’d found the right place for Kremee. With all the young people and their families visiting that area, Kremee’s opening would be appealing to their ideal customers.

But then the hard work of getting the business off the ground began. The Dinhs spent six to seven months getting the shop ready to open up. And there were plenty of challenges to address. Simply getting the shop ready took time, as they worked to obtain all the necessary equipment and paperwork from the city.

“We didn’t know anything about building a retail shop,” says Harry. “We had some projects at home, but that’s nothing compared to building a shop.” There were a lot of details they didn’t know they needed to tackle, and it was a learning process.

Finding capital to get started was another concern they had to face. “One reason this was challenging,” they say, “is that we didn’t have much money.” With limited capital in their budget, the Dinhs turned to friends who could help them with some of the interior design work. They explained their vision, and their friends and contractors helped them frame it out and bring it to life.

Doing paperwork wasn’t always easy, either, trying to satisfy inspectors and ensure they knew what was required for Kremee to operate successfully. They found themselves asking a lot of questions because they were learning to build a business from the ground up.

Launching Kremee Breeds New Challenges 

Opening the doors to Kremee was a success that created new issues to solve. The Dinhs soon learned that what they needed to serve 30 people was very different from what they needed to serve 300. They discovered some of their equipment wasn’t big enough for the demand they were meeting. They had to reinvent the process to make everything work more smoothly. It was the same kind of on-the-fly adaptation that any new business must face.

“In business, everything is moving very fast,” says Harry. “You have to act quickly. But the goal is to come up with solutions and keep the customer happy, make the kids happy.”

Seeing delighted children enjoying ice cream made the struggles worth it. “That makes us forget about all the challenges and hardships,” Trisha and Harry say. “You get to see the faces of the kids when they receive their ice cream. It’s the most incredible thing in the world.”

Finding Local Business Education Resources

When it came to putting business plans together, the Dinhs knew they needed to find help beyond their circle of friends and family. A friend referred them to the team at TEDC Creative Capital. They went to TEDC’s website and signed up for Kauffman Fasttrac®, a 12-week program that walks new business owners through the skills they need to succeed.

“It was really, really, really helpful,” they explain. “We didn’t know anything about starting a business, and there are so many things that have to be considered that have nothing to do with selling ice cream—things like marketing, hiring, legal, government, copyrights, all of that.”

That need for specialized knowledge can be overwhelming for startups, but for the Dinhs, TEDC’s educational offerings made the process easier. It helped to set them up for what to expect, exposing them to needs they’d have to address and providing paths through the difficulties that can arise when starting a business.

“Without TEDC, I would have a very difficult time learning on my own,” says Harry. “But the way that TEDC’s course is structured, they walk you through each of their step-by-step instruction, and they have experts come to different meetings to share their experience and guidance. I think the education is really valuable for people who didn’t own a business before and who just want to get started.”

Future Dreams to Dish Up Happiness

Down the road, Harry and Trisha envision possibly opening more storefronts to make it easier for people across the Tulsa area to enjoy their soft-serve creations. Serving people, after all, is what their business exists for.

“Trisha and I always tell our employees that we don’t just sell ice cream—we sell a unique dessert experience. We want our customers to experience happiness when they come to the shop and enjoy our product. It’s an overall experience we want to sell. We want more and more people to have an easier way to experience that happiness.” 

TEDC Creative Capital is a community-based organization that helps educate entrepreneurs in business skills and provides local funding options ideal for small businesses across Oklahoma. Discover how your small business can benefit from TEDC’s flexible, non-traditional funding vehicles and entrepreneurial educational programs to help entrepreneurs find success.