Live Episode! Angie's BOOMCHICKAPOP: Angie & Dan Bastian

Support for how I built this and the following message come from American Express. You want to build your business, they can help build your business with financing solutions for eligible business customers. The powerful backing of American Express. Don't do business without it. Terms apply, visit AmericanExpress dot com slash business. So really quick before we start the show, just want to tell you about a couple of how I built those live shows happening on the East Coast over the next couple of weeks. We're heading to New York City on September 10, where I'll be interviewing Christina Tosi of Milk Bar at Town Hall. We're also doing a live show on September twelfth in Washington, DC, with Tristan Walker of Walker Company. You can find out more about our live shows and get your tickets at nprpresents.org. And one more quick thing, there are still some tickets available to the How I Built This Summit sponsored by American Express. That's happening in San Francisco October twenty second and twenty third at the Yerba Buena Center. It's gonna be an incredible event with

Found from companies like JetBlue, Instagram, Slack, Away, Jenny's Splendid Ice Cream, Spanks, and many, many more. You can find out lots more about the summit, and also you can learn how to apply for the Summit Fellowship. The deadline is July 31st, that gets you free admission to the summit. So check it out at summit. N P R dot org. And I hope to see you there. You went to a bunch of banks.

And What did they say? Were they were they eager to lend you the money? No. You went to bank after bank and they just said what open to discussing than others and

You know, we eventually uh found a partner uh that worked with us and And what did you have to w what kind of collateral did you have to build? You said you had no collaterals. Personal guarantees. Personal guarantees, yeah. Which was our home.

Yeah. Future earnings. Everything but the minivan. Yeah. From NPR is how I built this.

Build. I'm Guy Roz and on the show today, how Angie and Dan Bastian went from popping kettle corn in their freezing Minnesota driveway. to building an international snack brand worth hundreds of millions of dollars. So there's a piece of career advice that I've always struggled with because it

Feels a little hollow. And the advice is to follow your passion. Follow your passion and everything will fall into place. Except reality. is somewhat different than that scenario. For starters, not everyone has an obvious passion, and then not all passions are easily translated into sustainable careers.

But if you've heard most of the founders on this show You might conclude that all of them pursued their passions, like James Dyson trying to build a better vacuum cleaner, right? Well, in fact, they are all passionate about what they created, but For the most part.

The passion came after the product came into being. and in the case of Angie and Dan Bastion, Neither Dan nor Angie. ever had a particular love for popcorn. Yeah, they liked it, but It wasn't their passion.

At least initially. The idea behind buying a kettle corn kit was Pretty simple. They needed a way to earn money to save for their kids' college funds. And popping and selling kettle corn? seemed like a reasonable way to do it. So in two thousand one,

After Dan literally saw an internet ad for kettle corn equipment, He convinced Angie that They should go for it. They could launch it out of their garage in Mancato, Minnesota, and then, you know, sell the popcorn at Little League games or in parking lots. And that was how Angie's Kettle Corn was born.

It would be the beginning of a grind. The long hours, the freezing cold days, the crushing debt. and the stress on their marriage and finances. But sixteen years after that kettle kit arrived,

Angie's boom chicken pop sold to a huge food conglomerate for a quarter of a billion dollars. It is like many of the stories in the show. Seemingly improbable. Two people. With no business experience, no connections, no real passion for popcorn.

still managed to build an incredible company. And a few weeks ago, Dan and Angie told me how they did it. in front of a live audience at the Ordway Concert Hall. St. Paul, Minnesota. These are your people.

So uh welcome. Thank you for being here. Angie, I want to start with you, um, and then we'll obviously get to when when the two of you met. Um You grew up in Indiana. I think mainly on a farm. Yeah. Um in a in a Mennonite community. Can you

Tell us a little bit about your childhood and and your upbringing. Sure. Um well my parents were very young. They were eighteen and nineteen when they were married, and nineteen and twenty. Uh when I came along and they lived in a trailer in the back of my grandparents' uh yard in the on the farm. And uh my parents met at Mennonite High School. And and so growing up you went to the Mennonite church and you were really part of them and I

Community. I was culturally, religious, socially, all men and I. you know with Mennonite culture. What what does that mean? I mean I uh obviously modesty, right? And so like Did you I don't know, watch TV and go to movies and do all the like do all those things as a kid? I got to go to a movie when I my first movie was The Sound of Music. Yeah.

Little risky. And I married a Catholic. Little different upbringing. No, it was it was very sequestered. It was very protected. I was very loved and cared for and very simple. And I didn't know I was an oddball until I you know until I was twenty eight. And and um

So you grew up in Goshen, Indiana. Yes. Dan, you grew up in in Mancato, right? I mean that's where that's where you're from. So I grew up in Manquito, uh third of four boys. It was kinda chaotic at times in our household, I'd say. Fun in a good way, having loving parents. Uh

Had an incredible experience growing up, um, very competitive. All of us boys played sports, so uh a few heads were thrown through the wall. There's a picture over that hole. Tell me a little bit about About your school like were you a good student in school?

I love school. Yeah. I I just Are you gonna ask me that question? I did, I loved school. And um but I grew up in a environment that didn't necessarily encourage me to go to college. And um you know it wasn't until my my aunt Christine in Colorado Springs said to me when I was nineteen, like why aren't you in college? and I I was the first time anybody in my family said That they thought I had some potential them to think that I had some potential.

Well I didn't know what I didn't know what. You know, I I just said, Oh my gosh, you know, you think I could go to college? And she said, Of course. You should go to college. And I enroll well I I took a chemistry course that summer just to prove to myself that I could do it and I got a B, so I was like, okay, I think I can do this. So I'm going to college. And Dan and Dan, how about you? I mean I mean were you Would did school come easy to you? Uh no.

I mean it was hard. I I probably would have been diagnosed as ADHD back in the day. Um I you know, it was just hard harder for me if Fortunately I had You know, my mom was really great about keeping me, uh keeping her finger on me to kinda get me through school. Um And I had two really smart older brothers that allowed me to get into a really great school, Saint John's University. So

And you when you went y I think you studied history in college and and was your and then you You finished when you finished college was your Idea to become a teacher. Um toward the end of my senior year I think I did a like a month long little internship in a classroom and so

Uh just love the kids. I kinda realized it was my passion and I was really good at it. Yeah. And I could kinda manage the classroom how I wanted to rather than being told, you know, this is how you need to teach. And I I think I really connected with the kids. Angie, you went off to study nursing. And you end up And In Santa Fe, right? Or or in Gallup. In Gallup, New Mexico. How and and was that to begin your work as a

as a you were a psychiatric nurse. Yeah, I was a psych I was working in Atlanta at uh Georgia Mental Health Institute and I was interested in transcultural health care. And so um I got a travelling nursing position. uh which was in Gallup, New Mexico, and they had the contract for Indian Health and with the Navajo tribe and the Zuni tribe for their inpatient psychiatric care and I was like I'm going there. I want it I want to I wanna see what this is like. Well

You also, Dan, end up in Gallup, New Mexico. Teaching Um high school, right? Yep. I had a family, a relative that was working at the hospital in Gallup, New Mexico, and I I ended up moving down to Gallup to teach at the high school, and just so happened that And sh was working at the same hospital where my uncle was. So that's how we met. You met

Through your uncle like or he introduced you or you just met at the hospital? We met in Roger's Kitchen. Uncle Roger's Kitchen. My jaw was broken. I had broken my jaw. Wait, so what? How'd you do that? Yeah.

No I don't know. I don't I was not eating well not to I fainted in the elevator and fell on my face and broke my jaw. So I was wired shut and my friend Raymond who was the social worker at the hospital was a good friend of his uncle's and he said let's go over and hang out at Roger's house. So we went over to Roger's house, we hung out, and my w jaw was wired shut, and Dan said immediately, Oh, you broke your jaw. I broke my jaw uh in college. Broke your jaw too? So when I was in college I was playing baseball and I got hit by a line drive. And

So Angie I could relate to it like when she walked when I walked into the kitchen, her jaw was wired shut. And it's like I know what she's going through, she's blending food, she's Like doing all that kind of thing. So that was kind of our connecting. So you bond over this right away. There's an intense jaw. So we there was a group of people that lived in Gallup that just would hang out together, you know. It's Gallup is a Very difficult place. And the hospitals and

There was a group of us that were there doing that and we would just go hang out and do Happy Hour every Friday night and we Got to know each other that way. So you start hanging out, eventually you guys bec become a couple and I think within like two years of meeting you got married, right? We got married. We had w a destination wedding in Taos, New Mexico, where we just kind of had all a small wedding but had friends and family come and

Watch us get married. I think a year later your daughter's born, ninety five. You guys moved to Santa Fe. Right. Yes. Um for a a a brief period and then You eventually moved to Florida. you're a young couple and you've got a child and Two kids. Two kids at that point. Oh your son was born. Son's born in Santa Fe. In Santa Fe. Why did you move to Florida? We just kind of said, Hey, you know, maybe it's time to get

a little closer to grandma's and grandpa's your family was in my family was in Sarasota Florida, yeah. So you move there, you start working for a clinic A clinic. Coastal recovery center, which is a malhealth clinic. And Dan, what did you do in Florida? So I stayed home with the kids, um, got to um Spend incredible uh time with them and I also at the same time

Started the entrepreneurial process and we s I started a Yeah, what do you mean by that? I mean'cause you're You're the lead parent, right? You are at home and and and she's and she's Working. Yeah, so one day a week I'd go work at this golf course. Um and Angel's mom would take care of Annika and Trip. What would you do at the golf course? I just slept bags and carts and I was just a car guy. Um Uh which I was good at, I guess. And you got free golf. And I got free golf. But I started this golf business where I'd set up tournaments for corporations. Uh I I didn't get real far with it, but I only had one or two turnups I think. But it was it was just kind of a good experience of

Because Angie and I had started thinking about, you know, can we do something together? Is there an opportunity to do something together? And you know, once this was winding down in Florida, we realized yeah, this was an end. So we had some other ideas flowing through our heads and but you would basically kinda start to think about hey, you know What what could a a business be like? What could it look like? Into your mind. Yeah, I got a lot going through my mind, guys. So I I I I I don't I don't know if I was really like focused on anything specifically other than

You know, Angie and I wanted to do something together. We didn't really know what it was. We were thinking food at the time. Not popcorn, but like food. restaurant, co op, cafe type thing, um where we could do it together and we could Go after it. I think both Dan and I has the have this sort of restlessness about ourselves. Like we and and like when one adventure doesn't work, we're on to the next adventure. Like let's go back to Minnesota. Let's go to Minnesota. I I loved Minnesota. And you guys decide let's go to Mankato. You want it to be near your family?

Yeah. And so we decided to To move back to Mankato, I got back into teaching because when we move back we were thinking of Like I said, opening up a like a cafe or some type of Food.

We just realized it was gonna be too expensive, we weren't prepared for it. So we got back into our careers. I got back into teaching and she got a job at the state hospital. And How what where's this idea? For kettle corn even

How did that even happen? Like you're going to your job, you are a nurse. You're working at the clinic, right? And you're teaching Can can I just tell you that when we were doing all of that, right? Like Successfully employed, everything and yet we said oh

You know, we don't have any savings. Like we gotta figure out a way to put some money away for our kids' college fund. We have to figure out how to create something here so that we have Money'cause we both just absolutely valued education, right? And you had a six year old and a four year old or three year old. Three and five at the time. Three and five, right? So we are like we haven't started yet. Everybody's already got a college fund and a four oh one, whatever that is. Four oh nine. We don't have anything. We don't have anything. We let's do something together. And so Dan was like, okay, I will figure something out. Yeah, so I'd go I'd be teaching during the day

And then Ange would I'd get home and Ange would go into work at five o'clock to like one o'clock. So at nighttime when the kids were bad, I'd go online looking for different businesses and You would just search. Yeah. And what what did you what did you come across? So for businesses. Yeah. Like what you would type things into Google, like this is early Google. You type in like early Google, you type in like

How can I make money from a side business? Like what were you what were your search parameters? Eh A site that said make thousands of dollars Every weekend or day Popping kettle car.

Which is like A total scam. How many scams actually you seen like thousands of dollars selling kettle corn and you thought Eureka? Eureka, you got Eureka. Well,$10,000 into it, we realized uh this is a potential scam, right? No, but I mean I mean You s you see this and you think Yeah, let this is cool. Like and and what what did the site say? Like

It just it had popcorn pop it. And it's so I just like I said Ange, I call Ange up and it's probably like 11 o'clock at night and I said calls me at work. She's at work and I said Ange This is something we could do on the side. I'm a teacher. We could do this on the weekends, uh during the summers. Um, you know, we could pop we with this ten thousand dollars you'd get a kettle. It was ten thousand dollars to invest in. Yeah, something like that. But but I I remember distinctly the phone call. I'm in the middle of maybe a take down. or something like medication for a patient that's severe and at the phone call, your husband's on the line. So I run back to the nurse's station and he's on the other end and he says, Ange.

What do you think about cattle corn? Like I like kettle corn. I didn't even know what it was. I didn't. I I really I mean I I don't it was p I I thought of it as popcorn. I knew it was kinda like sweet and salty, but I don't know if I had ever tasted but it looked like a cool side adventure where we could make Thousands of dollars every weekend. Of course. Of course. No brainer. So so what did you do? Did you did you order Like what did you order? We called him and we bought it on a credit card like everyone else.

Uh we bought we we got a kettle. A tent. You know, if you go to a fair one of those outdoor kettles and all the equipment, a table, it it probably Wasn't worth eight or ten thousand, but we it was already a pre packaged

And you and and basically instructions on on you know the proportions of sugar, salt and No it didn't have that No it didn't have that. No Oh my God No, but it was this to be fair, it was this couple's Uh out of Gig Harbor, Washington's Their own entrepreneur. Sort of like they were building these kettles and these packages to sell to kettle corn vendors. Right. And they were making a business out of it. What does a kettle look like? Is it yeah. It's like I don't know, how many quartz is it? Like a

Yeah, it's it's if you go to fairs, you see people screwing up. It was a handstrom. And you plug it into electricity? No, no, open flame. It was like five hundred degrees. Right. Yeah. So do you remember like unpacking this stuff and like looking at each other and saying, Let's make kettle corn. That's exactly what we did. We did. I know this seems far fetched, but it worked. It really worked. Wait, no so you unpack the so the stuff arrives. This is like pr this is really like pre

Two day delivery or instant Amazon delivery. It arrived. A semi truck pulled up and couldn't go down our alley. Our alley was too small. So it pulled up on the street outside and we had to haul these things up the alley to our little bit of a little bit of a Like garage that was in the alley. That first batch or five batches with The couple who had sold us the equipment. trying to figure out how this worked. So it was just it was a little chaotic. We burnt the first two batches. And then we just like tweak the recipe. It was really good. It was great.

go and sell kettle corn. And just out of curiosity, could you I mean at that point could you just set up the tent and sell it? Or did you need like a permit and all that stuff? No no we need it. We had to we I start that was my job to do the research. Like get the license, get the health department or whatever. And we you know we had to actually find a place that would let us pop and sell. so that they could inspect us. So what was the first place that agreed to let you set up a tent? Rainbow Food. Uh and and in front of Rainbow Foods it's at Supermarket. Supermarket change. But they let you set it up in the parking lot there? In front of the front door. Uh and we decided to do it the night before Thanksgiving because we thought that uh the traffic would be good. Uh this is in 2001. 2001. Yeah that so that's November 21st, 2001. This was my first winter in Minnesota, so I I I decided the date that we were gonna do it and Dan was like, well, okay, November 21st. Let's see what happens. And fortunately it was a beautiful fall day and um

It took us an hour to set up and we sold$300. Of popcorn. Dan, I mean your family was in Mancato, your I guess your brothers were maybe around your parents like when you said and they said, Hey, um Like I'm gonna sell kettle corn um in front of this.

Supermarket under a tenth. That's weird. Yeah. I had we had experienced, but there were a couple kind of crazy ideas that we had experiment with before.

Uh like a network marketing gig. And so my family was probably like here's Dan going again. Like here's another just hairbrained idea. Yeah. Інофос, а й тільки і вас морбат. You know, we're trying to Should I just So we were spinning our wheels. We couldn't figure out what we wanted to do and this was a way to get started. But ten thousand dollars, I have to imagine investing that kind of money.

Then was probably a kind of a big deal. the big deal. Well, Zero percent credit cards. Yeah, but still you gotta pay it back. Yeah, but we used another credit card to pay off that credit card.

There's a lot of credit cards going around at it at that time. And so you start selling the popcorn the first time you you you set up a tent, you sell three hundred dollars for the popcorn, and are you bagging it in like Ziploc bags and just Noah? Twist tie. Twist tie bags. Okay. Scooping it and selling it and popcorn, right, is like an amazing like the The difference in what you pay for the kernels and what you can sell the popcorn for, right, is it's a nice margin. People told us no one would pay three dollars or five dollars for a bag of popcorn or kettle corn or whatever, but

They did. They did. Because it's really good. So three hundred bucks, you come home. What's the next step? Let's do this again. Like I mean it felt I don't know. It felt exhilarating a little bit, you know, that w like we're in business now. Like we're actually doing this. Yeah. But you were still teaching, you were still doing your would you see your students like uh on the weekends, or would you see you know folks from the hospital? Yes. And they would look at me like, what are you doing? Yeah.

Right. I would have like when I was in the clinic in the afternoon, I saw patients. I was a nurse practitioner, so I was writing prescriptions and making referrals and and then I'd run home and I'd change into my kettle corn clothes and go to the um go to the local baseball game or uh with Dan or whatever and we'd Make kettle corn and sometimes my Clinic patients would be at the amateur baseball games and they would come up to the table and look confused. Because you were just writing a prescription, now you're selling them Kettle Card. Yes, exactly. And my message was you can always be more than one thing in life. You can. You can.

All right. So you've got a license, you got a tent, you got a kettle. And what were you calling the company at that point? Kettle corn cafe. Kettle corn c Got it.

So two thousand two, you take the winter off'cause you can't really sell it outside. Well we we did pop in January in the snow. Because there was a girls' basketball tournament at Minnesota State University and they didn't have any concessions and so we said here's our opportunity. And you have to do it outdoors, right? Because of the propane. So we put the tent outside the garage and it was snowing, and we just put the sides up and we'd pop it outside and deliver it over to the college. I think it was That summer Of two thousand two.

uh where you basically started to sell kettle corn at the Minnesota Vikings Training camp. Right. So wh how did that happen? Did you just like go there and set up sh you asked them, I'm assuming, if you could go and set up a tent? Or no, you didn't ask. No, no, we asked, we asked.

We're Midwesterners. And when you a And when you asked would they say yeah, you have to pay us uh you know a certain amount of money if you want to set up Yeah, I mean so With the with the Vikings I had a a former college classmate of mine that was uh assistant Athletic director at the college at Minnesota State University.

And he um Open the door for us to set up our tent. um at at the training camp and and I think There may have been a fear commission on that, but we thought I mean that was a huge opportunity for us to make make some extra money. Correct. So you start um uh selling popcorn there. And I guess one of you has this idea. Let's um

Let's send the players a team. Popcorn. Yeah, right. Like let's leverage this opportunity. Uh because Dan Like most Minnesotans um are huge Minnesota Vikings fans. But I didn't understand it yet because I had just moved here. But he was like

Minnesota Vikings, everything all about it. And and you know, it was at the time of Randy Moss and Dante Culpeper and you know that it like all that that era and and we he was just like wouldn't it be fun if the players ate our Kettle corn and we were like, Well let's figure it out. Let's figure out how to make it. So what did you do? You you just made tons of bags of kettle corn just to get it. We made a few phone calls just to see if we could give it to them. Yeah. And we waited and we waited and Nobody call back. No, we got a phone call back and they said, so we hear that you have some kettle corn that you want to give the players. We'll take it as long as it's free. So we were like Okay. Well give it to him for free.

So we popped 120 bags and sent it over to them. And you didn't even know if the if the players ever saw it. It was just in the locker room and some. So we so they came the sales marketing team came over and more or less offered us a contract on the spot. Wait, the because the players loved it so much? Yeah, and I think the I think the sales People at the Vikings saw it as an opportunity to bring in another. uh company to as another sponsor. Because

It wasn't like free to pop kettle corn for the Vikings. There was a fee involved. And we didn't really understand that until we got really excited and then all of a sudden So they came to you and they said, Hey, we have a great opportunity for you can be the official kettle corn of the Minnesota Vikings. But it's gonna cost you a sponsorship fee. Eight thousand dollars. $8,000 to be the official and then what are you? It wasn't official either. It would they it they they said preferred You know.

It costs more for official. Oh wow. But we said We're gonna be official. Alright, so you are

Starting to sell in front of the side. Football season. You're going there every weekend. to in front of the stadium, tailgators Not inside the stadium, right? Just in correct outside. And and were you I mean, were you selling a lot of cattle coin? Were you doing well?

Yeah, we were selling I mean Every Sunday we get up at like five A. M., pack the trailer and uh and take our equipment up and we'd be up and ready to go by nine a. They had a party on the plaza on Kirby Pucket Drive in front of the Metrodome. And uh there'd be a band. It doesn't matter if it there was a blizzard or if it was ten degrees or zero degrees the the party was still on. And we popped kettle corn.

No, we had friends come and help us. Volunteer friends. A lot of them are in this uh audience right now. And Yeah. And um I have to assume I mean your costs

Weren't that high, right? It's salt, sugar. Some oil and Corn, right? Yes. Corn kernels. Yeah. So we're but so you were probably making some money or but not too much money, like a little bit of money, or were you

Actually was it were you starting to be able to save for this college fund? Not really. It all went back in the business. We bought a trailer. We bought more equipment. We bought

I don't know. A heater for the You know, I don't it was just everything seemed to go back into the business. So W was this a kind of a turning point where you start to get attention? Because I think within a year or so a local supermarket chain in Minnesota approached you and said, Hey

You know, do do you guys want to sell your popcorn Here in our stores. Is that is that how it happened? Well yeah, so we started after a couple of years of being this outdoor event company We started realizing like this is not something we want to do for the rest of our lives. I mean we was it was any It was an opportunity to reach people, but it

We thought you know is there another way to get our kettle corn into people's hands, our mouths. It was cold. Right, it was crazy. And so when we we we started in two thousand three, two years into it, I I quit teaching um And I started focusing on the business. And was continuing to to work. full time supporting the family as well as helping in the business and

We met with a local grocery chain Luns and Byerley's and Um They said More or less Get your act together and come back and talk to us. Get nutritional panel, get packaging. You know, twist ties don't work in grocery stores. Right. So yeah. So what did you do? How did you

How did you start that? Um We'll get our act together and will you see us again? And um It took us six months. We found a small kitchen.

Um we bought some equipment, we moved the operation indoors. Um and got that That kitchen licensed. And we came back in six months and launched. And what did your packaging look like at that point? It was uh like a clear cello bag with a label that we're gonna do.

That we would paste on top. Like manually by hand, perfectly. The kids would do it. Your kids would do it. Wow. So you are still Doing this by hand. And you were sealing the bag? So Anica Tripp and Anche and I and Whoever else we could find would Do these labels every night.'Cause it can't be Kettle Corn Cafe, right? Like so we didn't know what

Popcorn was called really. So we went to the grocery store and we looked online and what we saw at the time was um in the grocery store it was Orville, it was Vic's, it was uh Cracker Jack, Hobbycock, Dale and Thomas, Harry and David, and I just turned to Dan and I said Where are the popcorn women? When we come back. How Angie's Kettle Corn eventually managed to get into Trader Joe's, even though it almost didn't, and how it eventually spread just about everywhere.

I'm Guy Rod, stay with us, you're listening to How I Built This from NPR. Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's the early 2000s, and Dan and Angie have started to get their popcorn into a few local grocery stores in the Twin Cities. They are still doing most of the popping and bagging and delivering. barely making enough money to hire anyone. But then they find two people Who seem to be willing to help out.

Well, we we hired Don and Jeannie were retired te third grade teachers and they helped us out. Um they were married, they retired, they just wanted to do something together, and they said we don't care what you pay us, and so we said, well, we could pay you eight dollars an hour for both of you He said sure. And they were amazing. They would do demos for us in one store while we would be in another store. And um, you know, over time we were able to pay them more. Um but they said yes because they were kind people and they wanted to help us. I mean at this point, you know.

Two thousand four, two thousand five. I mean, how are you financing this? Just through the sale of popcorn? Yeah, I don't know. Uh I and I I'm I'm not sure I mean, yeah, we were probably going further and further in debt, to be honest with you. I mean it was just a continual dragon. Totally chaotic. Right. Totally chaotic. And just

Doing, doing, doing. Um I mean we used a lot of credit cards, we funneled all the money back in. There was a time when I think we had Enough credit card debt that a a family friend came to us and helped us. He was an accountant. He looked at our books and just said, you know, why don't I just give you a loan here and we can relieve your credit card debt and you can pay me back. Um but I don't want to see you going on vacations and spending money at the golf club.

You you started this out to create college funds for your kids. And it sounds like for the first seven years you just buried yourself further and further into debt. They weren't going to col they were never gonna go to college. On this plan, right?

Right. And the other thing is we have the misunderstanding that when you have your own business you you're the You know, you own your time. Yeah. The business owns your time. Like we were like, w How did we go so wrong here? I mean like was there ever a point in that in the first five or six years where you were you're thinking Uh what are we doing? I mean, we're in debt. We're working like all the time. It was hard. I mean it was it was really

I mean I think early on You know, it just just takes over your life. Did you guys fight? All the time.

We did. We fought a lot. Yeah, we and maybe that helped us. I mean, we're not ones to spare words with each other. Yeah. But I mean how did Angie how did you compartmentalize like you're dealing with patients who have serious mental issues and then you're like

I I was one of those patients guy. And then you are pivoting to kettlecome. Well okay, wait, at the end of the day, I mean even though all of that stress was there, we're both pretty tolerant of each other. We We were committed to

each other and both of us are pretty kind people. So we we gave each other some latitude in in the whole situation and we just You know, I think we both just said we're We'll be fine. Like we'll get through this. We'll be fine. It was really hard to refocus and to realize that

You know, we gotta keep moving forward here because we're you know, knee deep into this and and we have to find a way to continue to grow it. Not really understanding where it was going or what the outcome future outcome was gonna be still. Alright, I think it was around two thousand eight, um You had to get a loan. to get a much bigger space. I think like a million dollar loan.

Um and you went to a bunch of banks. And What did they say? Were they were they eager to lend you the money? No.

Clearly you you had revenue coming in and Yeah, but we had debt. We didn't really have any collateral. And I mean looking back now, I I I can kind of understand Bank's position at that time where we were.

And um it was just it was a long journey. It was really hard. Uh it was the bank after bank and they just said what? Yeah, and we we had communication with some you know, a variety of banks and some were more open to discussing than others and it was just I I think ultimately We just uh weren't strong enough uh in a strong enough position for them to lend us a lot of money. We needed a lot of money to You needed money for a bigger facility to ramp up production. Because we had just at this point decided to move into a big bigger facility at twenty five thousand square hours. How many people were working for you at that point? Probably uh at that time, two thousand six, seven, maybe twenty ish or so. All full time or mixture of part time. A mixture of both.

Yeah. But You know we eventually uh Found a partner uh that worked with us in uh a bank and and uh lent us the money gave you the money yeah gave us the money and gave us a line of credit

And what did you have to what kind of collateral did you have to buy? Personal guarantees. Which was our home. Yeah. Future earnings. Yeah. Um

Everything but the minivan. Yeah. Because you know, you your kids are getting older and You guys are in your forties at this point and you know, for a lot of people that's kind of a

A turning point too, you start to think about, okay, at college and all these things. And and was any part of you nervous about that? I I I don't I don't think you ha when you make that decision, like if you start going down that path You're gonna crack because the bottom line was people love our product. We just had to figure out how to make it. Better more efficiently and how to get it into more stores. But did boob I mean, I imagine there was probably a little bit of frustration, right? Uh because people would probably come up to you and say, Oh, you guys are Angie's, I love your but kettle corn, it's awesome, you guys are crushing it, or so it's so great. In the meantime, you're struggling financially.

Well, can I just say like when you when you don't have any Real money to start out with, and all you have is ambition and potential and skills. You count on those things. you know, to make your way through. You know? And so we never really had any money and we did all kinds of amazing things in our lives, you know. So if this whole thing went south, we'd owe a lot of people a lot of money, but it wouldn't stop us from living our life. Did you feel the same way, Dan? Yeah, I I I

I'm pretty I have a pretty high tolerance for For risk and debt and I mean it was about you know, if we had money, let's put it back in. Let's grow, grow, grow, grow. And that wasn't the scariest part.

The scariest part came the next spring of two thousand eight. Yeah, and so but before so we had We were just very persistent with traders and we ended up getting

How did you even get to Trader Joe's? Ah, a lot of phone calls and a lot of product being sent to the buyer. It was You know, I think finally the buyer got sick of me and like said, I finally got a hold of her. She was in her office.

Marcy was her name and she like said, All right. What do you got here? I've tried popcorn before, it's not gonna work. And I said, you haven't tried ours. You know, it's that line that all of us use is not a good thing. No, we s I sent it to her. Right. And so we She agreed.

to bring us on. What was the order that she put in? She put in an order for twenty five trucks. What does that mean? How many bags of popcorn is that? That was uh What four five hundred thousand dollars worth it was crazy. And that would go all across the country in every trader show's. Yes.

We didn't know she was gonna try it and we obvious we had some problems with some clumping that first order and she immediately called and said fix it or We're kinda done. Right. And but at the same time, the scariest part was our line of credit for one hundred fifty thousand dollars had run out, and we didn't have any money to buy. It wasn't gonna be paid until later in June or July or something of two thousand eight. And you had to deliver it But we had to buy the supplies. But I see we didn't have enough money to buy the supplies. And we did all the sugar and corn and salt and So that was a terrifying it was like we were this close. How much did you need Well There was a credit card that came through the mail, just another credit card.

Ha ha And it said uh Call for A hundred thousand dollars. And I got on the phone one night and said

Can we get this hundred thousand dollars wired to us and our credit was good. And so they wired us$100,000. At at like a high percentage. Probably just rate I I Енсотас тут. To What was that check thing? Yeah, yes. Oh, like when they send you a check that says sign this, you get$100,000. I don't I don't remember. But it was in our bank account quickly. Yeah, it was. I'm gonna start paying attention to those checks in the mail.

I didn't r I didn't realize those are real, okay. But once so once we had that, we could pay our staff, we could buy supplies, and we could It would tie us over until we got paid by traders. And then traders came back with another order of like 25 trucks. Because it was going bonkers. And then that That's when we turn the corner. How did you actually physically make all that popcorn? How many I mean did you just have to hire s tons of temporary people or permanent people? Like how did that how'd you do that? Because you're still working in the hospital at the time. I will say that uh

We were fortunate to to look to hire people during two thousand seven and two thousand eight when the economy was sort of in the tank. And so there were a lot of people looking for work and you guys were not We just knew that there was opportunity out there because a lot of big companies were pulling back during the the recession. And and we were getting vibes from stores and from warehouse Costco and others that hey there's an opportunity here if you're willing to invest because others are not. And so we

Went for it. at that time and and kind of said we'll do this, this then we kind of said yes to everything. And we had because of that we had to hire a lot of people quickly. To

work in our plant so we can manufacture enough to ship out. So you uh are starting to sell the I mean you're really this is selling well At Trader Joe's. Um Do you remember what your revenue was in two thousand nine? Maybe

Three, four million. So I mean you could start we started to realise there was A chance here. But Angie, you stayed on until two thousand ten working as a nurse. What was the turning point for you where you thought okay Um now I'm gonna be in this, you know, full time.

I'm gonna stop. You know. Well I had I had um Left. the state because there was very little flexibility in at the state hospital. So I had left the state and

started my own contracting business so that I could contract my time and have my own flexibility and say this is when I can work and I can't work. So you were still Basically supporting your family, right? Dan was not you were not taking income from the company quite yet. Yes. We had a mortgage too, you know, so That was we were doing pretty well in in that regard, but um

But I started weaning my time back because Dan would call me and he would say, Okay, we have a Costco meeting on May twelfth or whatever. Can you move your clinic around and go to Costco. Up sure. And when you did those meetings, like when when you went to Costco, how did you pitch them? Would would you Dan, would you have Angie kinda be the face of the product and make the pitch? Or did you make the pitch or did you guys kinda bounce off each other like you're doing now? Well initially I Um, did all the sales calls early on. And then by the time we got to two thousand eight, nine, ten. Um especially

After that when Ange came on full time. They wanted to see her. I mean she her name was on the package. And um she You know, told the story really well. So

you know, instead of just instead of doing ops and sales and everything, I I kinda stayed focused on kind of the operational side, working with Greg, my brother, and kind of managing the team and and started focusing more on working with the sales side. You guys get a And an outside investment firm, uh Sherbrook Capital to B C firm. Come in, make an offer.

Did you feel at that time you needed you needed to have that? Capital to To grow in o in the way that you You know that you want it to? Honestly, we didn't know what they wanted. We didn't really understand private equity. We didn't know I mean

Yeah. I wasn't a business person. I I I didn't know exactly how it worked, you know, and Anston. And so it was more my brother Greg who started taking me some interest in that, and he's the one who initiated the dialogue with Sherbrooke after they contacted us, or him. Well and he he said like to us he goes, you know, we don't need the money now, but if we're gonna continue to grow, we're gonna need money sometime. And we understood that because we had just been through years of like, Oh God, we need money. Yeah. Right? So um So even though we don't need it now, it made complete sense to us. And now we were in a position where we didn't need it and that's the time to go ask for it. So okay. But that money obviously helped because at that at that point you decide

to begin a rebrand and to introduce to to move beyond just kettle corn. Right. Well and they okay, so here a couple things that when they when we decided when we understood what private equity was about, like I had only ever seen private equity in movies and they were deconstructing businesses and they were the bad guys, right? But the you know we these this Private equity was a small pr shop and they were had built brands and they were interested in partnering and we said we wanted our people's success to be you know, success along with us. Can you help us figure out what to do? And they helped us set up a um

an employee equity pool, they helped us set up a board, they helped us set up a professional sales team and build a marketing team. So there's a whole new Entirely development. And it felt like like we understood partnership because Dan and I were in partnership you know, this whole way. And so now we just had another partner. You know, we had we were now our business was marrying their business. And so what was the impetus to You know,'cause your kettle corn is your bread and butter, right? What is the impetus at that point to go to

You know. salted popcorn or buttered popcorn or other flavors, was it Was it them? Was it was it other people saying hey, you know, we want different flavors. Well in 2011, there there were we were in the Natural and Organic Snack section, right? So it and that's where we live. You're in Costco, Target. You're at um Target at this point? Yes, we're in Target. And in a lot of regional grocery chains doing very well in the natural and organic section. But it it to me when I looked at it on the shelf it looked very masculine. Well would it be you were talking about other natural and organic sections. I used to walk the stores and just stare.

Yeah, stare at the The salty snack. And the the natural organic snacks that were aimed at women, I thought, looked like they assumed we were all on a diet. And so I was like Okay. Like we can do that, but we don't have to do it in that way. So let's do that along with our kettle corn. Let's do more. So we built out an innovation sort of product innovation map and started looking at innovation as more than just the product, but in the messaging and branding.

Did you I mean it's this is also coincides with like the gluten free Explosion, right, which we are still in. Did that did you also were you also able to kinda ride that wave? We absolutely did. We would have mothers calling us. saying is your product certified gluten free? And we this was early on. Dan's cell phone was on every single package because that was our business. Oh really? That was our business number.

And so his cell phone would ring and it would be some mom standing in front of a Costco palette saying, Is your is this allergen free? Well the the reason I did it I did it early on before We were very big, and I wanted all complaints to come to me. And it just We never ended up taking it off until

I took two thousand. Until this private equity said, it's time to get your phone number off the back. But yes, so we said yes, that we heard all these mothers calling us. Yeah, we gotta get certified gluten free. So we did. Two thousand eleven. you decide to

Find uh somebody to help you with a new name. You go to a branding agency. We go yes. And what and what what names did they come up with? Four really boring ones and one that I thought we thought was interesting. What was it?

It was called Boom Chick a Pow Pow. Yeah. Good name. Well we laughed, right? Like everybody laughs boom chick a pow wet. And and this the brief was like, hey, we don't want to be diet. We want to elicit curiosity, we want to be something different.

Uh we want to be celebratory and come from a position of empowerment, right? So this is gonna be Angie's boom chick a Pow. Power. And we were this is the days that we were all at one table together, and we had a business analyst at the end of the table eavesdropping on the presentation. And after the creative agency left, he said, you know, boom chica pow is 70s porn. That would not go down well in the Mennonite church. No, it would not. And we were we said, and how do you know? So we said, okay, but if there was energy, you know, there was energy and it and it it it had it struck the right tone and we just told them go back and fix it. They came back, boom chick-a-pop, we launched it in May of 2012.

How did your Customer base respond to the new name. Yeah. Well we had buyers that said, Oh, it's just awful. You know, it's don't do it. Confusion. Confusion, right? Yes. Right. And and we don't really like it. They don't really get it. We had people internally that said, don't do this. Um, you know, and and you know, there were two of us women on the leadership, um Mary Hannahan.

And was our marketing director and myself, and we fought like, yes, we want this, um, because it is We are not gonna do Angie's nearly naked, we're not gonna do Angie's skinny, we're not gonna do Angie's whatever that is. We wanna own something else. It's gonna be fun, it's gonna be creative, it's gonna be dimensional, it's gonna celebrate the feminine and you know, for years women have bought you know, chips and everything that ha that, you know, are marketed to men, and we don't think a thing about it. Um and so why not put a package out there that appeals to women And I will say and and it was that first non-GMO branded popcorn on the market. And it it became our number one selling skew in four months. The yellow bags. The yellow bags after nine years of business. Wow.

So I think around two thousand fourteen, um T PG growth comes in a bigger private equity firm they buy out. Uh Sherbrooke, yeah. And um

big stake in the company and It's real money. Um, and I think At that point you guys started to distribute. money to people who had been with you and worked with you for a long time.

Yeah, those uh granted equity shares became liquid for our staff. Um Best three days of my career. I think so. Yeah. Mm.

Do you remember? Do you remember how much money you were able to distribute? Millions of dollars. Well, yeah. And I mean that Can't

probably doesn't happen very often in Mancato, right? Like a liquidity No it's true. It doesn't. I mean it it was you know for everyone that's not a little bit more than I've been a Um had given you know, everything to us for in the company and and

I mean it's still emotional, you know, thinking about it, but Um it w it was Uh it was kind of a thank you to everybody. Um Then we got to do it again. And two thousand seventeen. So two thousand seventeen.

Con Agora huge company that owns many brands. Spies out. Your company uh reportedly for a quarter of a billion dollars. Astounding.

quarter of a billion dollars for popcorn. I mean and the brand. And the brand. And the brand. I mean, talk about a great$8,000,$10,000 investment for a flyby night kettlecorn. Kettle. Man.

Now now we're all thinking, Phew, wish I saw that ad on Google with a popcorn popping in two thousand one. So they buy it out. And um I mean What

Uh d w did you even have time to absorb what that meant? Or were you just I don't know. You know, the the the last three years from fourteen to seventeen when when TPG came on. We sold uh pretty big share of our ownership to TPG.

I mean I think if we had to jump out and fourteen, it would have been really hard. But we we we were had three years run where we were able to kinda slowly step back And participate as much as we wanted to, and as much as

The staff needed us. And so I think when Sevent came It was the f the fourteen sale. was much more emotional. In a sense because it was like

Oh my god, we did it. Yeah. Yeah. And that whole thing about like hey we we started this to put our kids through college and have enough money. Yeah. Now we're doing that for All these other people. mean I mean you also I know you are a brand ambassador and you are on contract with

with Conagra and Dan, are you involved with the company at all? I'm not. Not at all. Um First of all, I mean The fact that you came into such a substantial amount of

Has that substantially changed your lives? Has it? H and and so how? Uh yeah, I mean I know we're Minnesota, no one likes to talk about money. I I think um

Yeah, it's I I mean, you know, we just we've Got into This later in life. And so I mean I'm still wearing these jeans that I've had for ten years. So those are nice dad jeans. Yeah. I noticed those.

I noticed those jeans. They're Yeah. But yeah, it's allowed us, it's given us an opportunity to do things that never would have had the opportunity to do.

I mean Could you have imagined when you ordered that kettle and it arrived in your garage and you were like Mixing it and burning the corn, the popcorn like That you would go on it would go on to be purchased for a quarter of a billion like

Sixteen years later? Could you could you have imagined that? No. No. No. Never. I mean not even not even probably halfway through or three quarters of the way through did we think about it in that way? I mean it was just for us looking at the next horizon and the next thing that we needed to do and the next right thing that we needed to do. I I I think more Angie and I were just talking about this. I think

More contemporary entrepreneurs. probably are thinking that way. I mean we started in two thousand one. I I think for us It was just kind of not on the radar.

everyone was starting up food companies or you know different businesses as much as it is today. For us It just kinda grew we grew into it and grew into the good fortune of it happening. I have done

interviews with co founders who were married before and are still married in some cases. Melissa and Doug. are still married. Um but then there have been examples we had an episode recently, EO products. They divorced.

They kept the company going. You guys had a marriage, you had a family, you had a partnership. A lot of str I mean just just being married and having kids, uh right, anyone who's who experiences that, there's stress. Right, you argue. And and that's normal. But but running a business together on top of that, and a business that

For years and years is a grind and just You don't really know if it's working and the H how do you how did you survive how did it survive? Go ahead.

Mm. That's hilarious. Um You know, at the end of the day it's about love, right? Like you just you decide

Do you love this person? Yes. You do you are you willing to com commit to this person no matter what? Yes, you know, and and I think for Dan and I we both had that sort of frame of mind. And Uh you know it doesn't make it easier. Uh but I think that

You know, both he and I have this mindset that we're gonna make something work. You know, by God, if anybody can make it work, we'll make it work. And um You know, it I think it just took Uh with the business and with our marriage, just recommitment all the time, you know, every day, every week, whatever

Whatever it meant. Yeah. Do you think Uh Dan, first to you, do you think that all what you achieved? I knew this question was coming.

Yeah. I love it. You know Yeah. I think Th there's a ton of good fortune that has come our way.

Um people have been so embracing and and kind and helpful in so many ways. So many people this crowd is the reason we're up here. But I I we put a lot of energy into creating environment that was about giving to the consumer, giving to the customer. I think there's some skill in that. I think I was blessed the ability to to interact with people and build rapport pretty quickly and I knew the importance of that.

Um, and Ansh had so many other gifts, the marketing side, the creative side, the initial finance side. that we were able to understand our talents and pool it together and You know, no doubt there is good fortune and luck that comes your way at the right time things happen, a credit card mailing comes in and So I I I mean it's there is. There's luck involved in this and we were just fortunate at at the right time we made some good decisions and rebounded

Well from some bad decisions. Angie? Ah boy, you know, I've seen a lot of really good people work just as hard as us. or harder and not experience the same Good fortune.

that we've had and so I I think Uh it does take I mean we made a conscious effort to create goodwill and positivity and when you do that I I believe that that comes back to you. But you can't do it without hard work. And G and Dan Bastion.

Co-founders. A boom chick a pop. Spoke to Angie and Dan Bastian at the Ordway concert hall. in Saint Paul, Minnesota. And by the way, that original kettle they bought in 2001?

Angie and Dan no longer own it. When Conagra bought the company in 2017, They also acquired that old kettle. And Angie believes it is now sitting in the back of a very large storage facility, somewhere in Minnesota. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of How I Built This.

Our show was produced this week by Rachel Fawkner with music composed by Ramteen Arablui. Thanks also to our live events team, Alan Prescott, Rachel McGrath, John Isabella, and Andy Hewther. Thanks also to Julia Carney, Neva Grant, Jeff Rogers, and Sanas Meshkhanpur. Our intern is David Jar. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening. to how I built this.

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