In this, our final episode with a guest of the Youth Career Readiness podcast, Julie Lammers and I welcome Manish Vora, co-founder of the Museum of Ice Cream (yup, Ice Cream!), to explore how joy, play, and imagination can inspire both careers and educational experiences. Manish shared the story behind building the Museum of Ice Cream and talked about the importance of starting any entrepreneurial journey with what you love, embracing creativity, and following the path of joy and connection. He encouraged young people to invent from their passions—and reminded listeners that even playful, seemingly wild ideas can make a meaningful impact on the world.
Although many of our episodes in this series discourage people to follow their passions—and for understandable reasons!—this hint of joy gives a different flavor to the conversation (pun intended). Enjoy!
Julie Lammers
Today we’re excited to welcome entrepreneur Manish Vora. Manish is the co-founder of the Museum of Ice Cream, an experience that blends art, design, business and pure fun to create moments of connection and joy for people around the world. We’ve been looking forward to this conversation for a while.
Michael Horn
And I’m excited because Manish is a friend of mine. We went to college together. So this will be fun on multiple levels for me, but also because I’ve never gotten to ask him this question before. So, Manish, it’s good to see you, my friend. Your work, of course, has been centered over the last many years around creating experiences that spark real joy. Not just for those that you serve, but also for the teams, your teams that build these experiences. So a lot of middle and high school students today, as you know, they say they want careers or jobs that make them happy and also make a positive impact on others. What advice would you give those young people who want their future careers to spark real joy, both for themselves and for the people that they serve?
Manish Vora
When we built the Museum of Ice Cream, it started with a deep love for museums. Walking through historic homes, exploring exhibits, stepping into spaces filled with stories. Museums protect imagination. They hold culture. They invite us to step inside someone else’s world. And I remember thinking, what if there was more? More play, more joy, more laughter bouncing off the walls and of course, more ice cream. And maybe a million sprinkles.
So we built the Museum of Ice Cream. A place where you don’t just look at a museum, you step inside it. You participate, you taste, you laugh, you become a part of it. Today we have eight Museum of Ice Creams all over the world, with over 4 million ice cream lovers coming every year. And it started with just one playful idea. And here’s what I would tell you all. If you want to build something joyful, start with something you love. If you love museums, start there.
If you love history, space, making, dinosaurs, it doesn’t matter. Start there. Invent something from nothing. Invent something from something you love. You can expand on anything that already exists and just follow the laughter, follow the joy. Look for that giggle in the room, the big laughter, of course, and something that makes somebody else smile. And to me, laughter is a driver of connection.
And this is something that, even though it’s playful, can still be a great idea, like the Museum of Ice Cream. So what I would ask yourself is, what makes you feel most alive? What brightens your room with color? What creates more play? Innovation is just adding joy into people’s lives when they least expect it. So we always say, anything is popsicle. That’s right. At Museum of Ice Cream, any of your ideas, anything is popsicle. No dream is too small, no dream is too big. Swimming in sprinkles, building museums of ice cream around the world.
It all just starts with saying Wouldn’t it be amazing? Wouldn’t it be insane if you had an idea that feels joyful? Joyful. A little wild? And that’s what the world just needs. Keep building and build something like a museum and I hope to see you out there in the museum world.
