From customer to franchisee to CEO: Neil Hershman’s journey to froyo fame with 16 Handles

What happens when a devoted fan becomes the CEO of his favorite froyo chain? In Neil Hershman’s case, it results in an international expansion fueled by product innovation, experiential marketing, and operational expertise.

Founded in 2008 as New York City’s first self-serve frozen yogurt shop, 16 Handles helped ignite the region’s froyo craze with locally owned franchises across the tri-state area.

Neil Hershman from 16 Handles

The brand’s untapped potential caught the attention of a young hedge fund manager and froyo fan—Neil—who bought his first 16 Handles franchise with the help of a Small Business Administration (SBA) loan. Within a few years, he became the brand’s largest franchisee with 16 locations in Manhattan, and by 2022, he acquired the company.

As owner and CEO, Neil has revitalized the brand with firsthand experience and a deep understanding of its millennial audience, keeping the froyo chain relevant through the industry’s ups and downs. “[The brand] plays to today’s market more than ever, especially where culture is shifting a little away from alcohol culture. We’re looking for these experiential moments that aren’t at a bar, and 16 Handles is that place,” he said.

This is… the place where you have those amazing moments that you wanna recreate, all while eating the best frozen yogurt you’ve ever had.

—Neil Hershman, CEO of 16 Handles

As 16 Handles demonstrates, with the right blend of originality and on-the-ground experience, regional brands can scale successfully without losing what makes them special. Below, Neil shares insights from his journey from franchisee to CEO, along with key learnings for brand leaders and marketers driving growth at scale.

A local froyo chain goes national

Neil began his journey with 16 Handles as an enthusiastic customer, imagining how he would improve his neighborhood froyo shop. “I was a very avid customer of a store that was around the block from where I lived at the time,” he said. “I wanted some kind of position where I could say: ‘Hey, I go to the store all the time. There are some things wrong with it.’”

That position ended up being owner-operator. With the previous franchisee on their way out, Neil was able to acquire the 16 Handles location in Murray Hill, Manhattan. “In one summer of focusing on the store all in—working open to close, every single shift—I was able to really advance the business… to the point where the profit was so great that I decided to leave all my other projects and just focus on 16 Handles,” he said.

Employees celebrating a new store opening from 16 Handles

After conferring with other local franchise operators, Neil felt confident he could replicate that same growth on a much larger scale. “It kind of felt like I was gatekeeping a secret business,” he said. “I was just dumbfounded as to why other [froyo] brands are the national brands, and we’re just the New York, tri-state area brand.”

Co-owners Neil and Danny Duncan from 16 Handles

When the pandemic hit, Neil saw an opportunity in the shifting retail landscape, taking advantage of newly available storefronts and attractive lease terms. “Instead of getting scared, I was the one coming in and building,” he said.

The former hedge fund manager quickly became 16 Handles’ largest franchisee with 16 locations across Manhattan—but he had even bigger dreams for the brand. “It is a very scalable concept. It’s just hard for a single person to scale… in an industry that, in reality, has plateaued and has room for a brand to really take off,” he said.

The breakthrough came in 2022 when Neil and YouTuber Danny Duncan acquired the brand from founder Solomon Choi. In the three years since, Neil and his team have redesigned stores and streamlined operations to scale the brand and grow its franchise program from 30 to 150+ locations, with the goal of making 16 Handles an international froyo destination.

Where marketing sets the menu

Under Neil’s leadership, 16 Handles has set itself apart with inventive flavors and limited releases—always dropped on the 16th of the month. These launches are a master class in creating hype for the brand and boosting engagement on social media as well as foot traffic to franchises. Customers line up to sample new releases on the 16th, when they can also earn double the loyalty points for their visit.

16 Handles marketing

In some cases, marketing ideas actually inspire product launches. For example, last June, 16 Handles launched a french fry flavor, riffing on a popular internet meme about McDonald’s frequently broken McFlurry machines. “Our big marketing campaign was, ‘Sorry, our french fry machine is down,’ cause—you know—it’s always their machine that is broken,” Neil said.

But the flavors aren’t just novelties: The brand conducts audience research and tests out every concept. Each launch is targeted toward a specific audience segment, with the goal of exciting both loyal fans and new customers. The Sour Swirl (16 Handle’s take on Sour Patch Kids) helped the brand break into the afterschool crowd, while the “Squid Games”-inspired black matcha flavor courted fans of the popular Netflix show, timed to the release of its second season.

Neil turns to his friends and family as a real-world focus group, vetting ideas before they go public; if they don’t “get” it, the flavor stays shelved. But more often than not, the drops are a hit.

“Our sales growth has been phenomenal in months when we launched the french fry, or the ‘Squid Games’-inspired flavor, the Butter Beer from ‘Harry Potter.’ Our sales are up 30 to 40% the week that we launched compared to prior years, so it really does make a difference,” he said.

Playing to the strengths of the franchise model, 16 Handles corporate encourages operators to curate their own menu of 16 flavors, blending classics with experimental offerings. “We let our operators have that flexibility because they know their stores best, right? They’re the ones who are meeting the customers every single day, and every single market has its own kind of play and flavor preferences,” Neil said.

Self-serve toppings bar from 16 Handles

Leading from a franchisee’s perspective

From the outset, Neil’s leadership strategy has been grounded in real-world experience. He draws from a familiar talent pool: the brand’s franchisees. His first hire as CEO was Vice President of Franchise Relations Lisa Mallon, who co-owned the Fairfield, Connecticut, location for 13 years. After all, Neil said: “Who knows the brand better and believes in the brand more than people who’ve been successful with the brand?”

Staffing experienced owner-operators has helped Neil navigate the many challenges of scaling, such as ensuring consistency across locations. This is especially important for a culturally relevant brand like 16 Handles, which built a reputation for remaining nimble and responsive to trends. (As soon as the Dubai chocolate craze hit stateside, for example, customers from Texas to North Carolina were lining up to try 16 Handles’s new Dubai chocolate flavor.)

Neil’s biggest hurdle has been meeting that demand with enough supply. “Our government is putting new tariffs [in place], and everything is changing day to day. There’s a lot of unpredictability that goes into making things consistent across a brand. This goes for probably every large brand that’s in multiple territories: It’s really hard to have that consistent menu,” he said.

For national brands, a consistent customer experience is just as important as the menu. To ensure each location’s online presence is accurate and up-to-date, Neil uses Yelp’s integration with Yext to aggregate customer reviews and business information (such as business hours) across every location. “Cause that is the most frustrating [experience], right? You go to a place because [its Yelp Page says] they’re open, and they’re not open,” Neil said.

The corporate team also takes advantage of Yext and other AI tools to provide timely, personalized review responses, which Neil believes are vital for both reputation and revenue. “Sometimes you can lose motivation… like, why do I need to respond? Why do I care?” he said. “But the answer is it for sure is changing things because stores that have… more reviews and [more] responses on the reviews—positive or negative—do have higher revenue in our system.”

Even as the brand scales nationally, local owners and operators help 16 Handles stay true to its origins, preserving much of what Neil first loved about that froyo shop on his block. “Most of our franchisees are in their community,” he said. “They have kids in the school districts. They know the doctors around town. They know the restaurants that people are going to. Having that local tie into the community really brings the whole thing home.”

16 Handles interior

These lessons come from an episode of Behind the Review, Yelp & Entrepreneur Media’s weekly podcast. Listen below to hear more from Neil, or visit the show homepage to learn about the show and find more episodes.