The art of letting go with Vincent and Andrew Kitirattragarn of Dang Foods

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Yeah. Hello everyone and welcome to how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz. So, as you all know, how I built this is a show that celebrates mistakes. In fact, I think of this show as a kind of yellow page, as a directory of mistakes. And the idea is that by listening to the amazing stories of founders and some of the mistakes they made along the way, you can learn how to avoid them yourself.

Well, back in January 2022, we did an episode on a brand called Dang Foods. It was started by two brothers, Vincent and Andrew Kitteratragard. And if you haven't heard it, it's worth your time. You can scroll back in the podcast queue to find it, or just search Dang Foods in your podcast app. Anyway, Vincent and Andrew have family roots in Thailand, and They want to bring Asian inspired snacks to grocery stores. They built Dang into a pretty impressive brand to a point where you could find their rice crackers and energy bars and coconut chips at Whole Foods and Target and Walmart.

But Unfortunately, the business ran into trouble. and a lot of it had to do with the pandemic. the brothers were faced with a series of difficult choices. try to sell it, try to save it, or declare bankruptcy.

Both Vincent and Andrew agreed to come back onto the show to talk about what happened and why. It was a really courageous thing to do. Most of us don't like talking about failure or setbacks, but When we do we can help ourselves and help others the value and lessons of those setbacks. When the pandemic hit, Vincent and Andrew had to navigate huge changes in consumer demand, and then a global supply chain crisis.

Uh I remember thinking with Andrew, like we really came to the conclusion that it it was an existential crisis for the business. Yeah. Because uh two of our three product lines are imported from Thailand. And so when your cost of goods the fate, you know, goes from five percent to thirty percent. Um that's that's a big increase. Wow. And what I mean, and this was all Covid related, it was just the backlog of Shipping, is that how it was explained to you? My understanding it was a supply and demand issue.

So People were staying at home and they wanted to buy stuff for their house. And uh so demand for imports increased dramatically. And there wasn't enough uh containers to go around. I remember w when we had you on the show and everybody should listen to this should go back and listen to it'cause it is an awesome story.

about how you guys started this this company and because we're cooking in kitchens. Anyway even when you were on the show, you were not a a massive company, but you had managed to create um a pretty You know, significant brand. If you went into any whole foods. You would see dang, you would see that label.

um on coconut chips and on rice crackers um And and you still do in many whole foods. Um but at the time we spoke There were challenges. But you

you guys started to see some challenges with the business. What was what was happening at the time? Yeah, so going back to twenty nineteen, yeah, I remember we had just launched our dang bar. It was a it was a keto bar with uh Asian flavors and ingredients. And we had launched it with Whole Foods in twenty nineteen, um, the first full year was great, became our Number one product line really quickly.

And keto just to be clear. That was a smart move. I mean this is a hot tr it's not even a trend, I mean it's a hot diet, right? I mean and you've got bulletproof this and all these different brands that are doing keto. So This seemed like a probably like a no brainer.

At the time there were no keto bars on the market. We're like wow. This is such a big opportunity. So we race to develop it and uh partner with Whole Foods to launch it nationwide And it did great. I

It was our gonna be our driver of growth in twenty twenty and beyond. But when covet hit and people were sheltering in place. They stop buying energy bars as much because it's a good on the go snack. And when you're staying at home, you just don't buy bars as much. So That line took a hit pretty immediately. But was there an initial surge? I mean I know with like Cliff Bar, for example, they were flying off the shelves when Covet hit because people were stockpiling food.

So was there an initial spike? There was a small initial spike as people were panic buying, but you know, as people settled into their new routines of staying at home, um and not going out to shop at grocery stores. Uh we did see a huge impact on All of our

Products. 'Cause you were doing Coconut chips. Which you had um a few flavors. Rice crackers.

Um and you had a few flavors. And the energy bar showed incredible promise in twenty nineteen. It it seemed like There was a world where that could Dominate your

That was the plan, right. Uh and so you know, with the energy market being as big as it was, we're like, Hey, you know We we created this nice niche we should continue. Growing it. It was it was kind of heartbreaking to, you know

face reality, uh when Covid hit and uh Yeah, and notice that it's not gonna grow into what we had hoped. Um

And so that was just the first kind of um multiple waves of challenges, I would say the the the immediate impacts of Covid on purchasing habits of snacks and bars. And then the second wave was this uh supply chain crisis that caused huge spikes container prices. So all right, so all of a sudden um Andrew.

Freight costs skyrocket. the cost to ship Your goods. Um you know dramatically increase.

So W I mean presumably you had to raise prices, right? We did raise prices. Um There's just

So much that you can raise so With the container prices going up from five K to twenty two K in one month. You can't increase your price on shelf. By four hundred percent. Yeah. You just can't you just can't do it. Like it's just You you just need to stomach through it.

So let me just acknowledge I I I I know that this is still recent. What ha ha what has happened. today and I uh uh really appreciate you guys coming on to talk about it. I think it's really courageous and I think it's also important because as you know this show is about

Um, you know, it's it's designed to be free business school, master class for For anybody. who wants to start a business or is thinking about it or is just inspired by it. And You guys built an inspiring business and brand.

You know and it it's a great story of how you did it. But of course, great businesses, I mean even ones that we've had on the show. don't always make it for a variety of reasons. Covid was you know a a black swan event. and had a huge impact on your business, um, I mean you you had to really cut costs, right, to just just to stay

in business just to make sure that you could survive because you could only raise prices a certain amount before people would stop buying your product. But in order to stay alive, you had to probably do things like Cut back on expenses, I g I gather.

Guy, it was a matter of survival. Right. And Um It was

Definitely one of the hardest things we had to do. The The cuts to the marketing and the spend were were easier. The the layoffs were a lot harder. And we needed to do it because we

in the near future over the revenue side. Yeah, when you Yeah, when you're not profitable and not growing. It's it's tough. Uh I mean the the only options are to fundraise. Right, or look for acquirers. So

Yeah, we look for fundraising, but Uh it wasn't Coming. And Yeah, we had to pivot to look for people to

Oh People would be interested in merging. Us with another business. Um or acquiring the business. So I guess

Around March of twenty twenty two. You really started to look at your options. Mm sort of with a Um a sort of a more

urgent lens, right? So one one option would be Can we Find investors. So you D and did you guys go out and see if you could raise money? Yeah, we went to

I wanna say five or six dozen. uh potential investors. Wow. And spoke to them about Yeah. The situation that we were in that it was a Yeah, that that

cost had skyrocketed and that we thought it was gonna be a short term thing. Um and that cost would come back down and then we would end up being more profitable. But uh it's tough to fundraise when you're not growing and not profitable. Um And Yeah, it wasn't a it wasn't a easy sell.

Yeah. Um, that must have been hard. That must have been really hard to do that, to to really So from place to place and hear no or thank you or we'll we'll we'll get back to you.

God, it was extremely hard. I remember Talking with Vincent and we were discussing whether or not We wanted approach our Friends and Uh like our colleagues.

about potentially putting in some money and I told Vincent That I didn't want to go to my friends. To do that. Like I felt like the market was telling me something and I

I felt like it'd be misleading. In my heart. To ask them. to put in more money when I maybe Start to not.

To not believe. Yeah. I bet. And so w when that didn't work, one other option is of course, could you sell? Could you could could you find a buyer

for the company and what what did you guys try to do? Yeah, we collectively got together with our board had meetings and came out with a list of people that we're gonna go after and who's gonna Talk to them. You know, brands uh and or you know, organizations that would be interested in acquiring us.

But the idea was Uh you know. we might not make sense as a standalone entity, but it does make sense as an add on. Like we spent ten years building this brand that people understand and know and go back and look for. Um And You know, if you already have

a group that's operating a business, you can tack this on to it. And you know, we had talked with probably another you know close to a hundred brands. Wow. And uh a lot of them Yeah, we're interested, and some of them were worried about uh supply chain issues. Um and we actually ended up, you know

getting an offer, some offers from Interestingly these you remember do you remember the the kind of spa craze? Oh yes. There was like a whole craze of you know these public Companies that would be Basically

Entities that would go public and then look for an ac acquisition later on. And so there were quite a few of these in our space and we talked with them, but In looking closely at those. Businesses were It just it didn't feel like a right fit. Yeah. Um and nothing ended up making it past the finish line.

And and you guys uh what what was your objective. You could have um just wound down the business and you know declared bankruptcy. There's lots of things you could have done. I mean you had raised money. I think you'd raised I think about ten million dollars. But was your objective to at least try to get some money back to the original investors.

Yeah, so the you know, we raised a a little above ten million and um The goal was You know, to try to make them whole. Or have that equity roll over into another entity.

Um, but you know, ultimately it's very tough to I think align incentives during mergers and these types of acquisitions. Um and so it nothing really fit the bill. I think Part of that too is Like we wanted this thing to live on. Like.

Somebody else take it and like Keep going with what we made. Doesn't have to be huge, but just keep going with it. Yeah, we'd spent this ten years building this. It's named after our mom. It's very personal. to us. Yeah. And to see it.

Disappear. I mean. You know, it it felt to me like That would be like almost the lost of a loved one. Like there's a there's a definite grieving process. Um

When it came down to letting something like this go. We're gonna take a quick break, but when we come back How a chance encounter at a holiday party reinvigorated Vincent to get back into the business of Well

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to get your own KPI checklist. NetSuite.com slash built. Hello, and welcome back to How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Roz, and my guests today are the founders of the Asian-inspired snack food brand. Dang foods. So I guess you guys did decide in the summer of twenty twenty two.

to do the wind down option. Right. Um which what did that mean? What did that mean you were gonna do? Andrew. Uh what we decided to do is

With the port's permission. We stopped ordering inventory. Because if we didn't see a path forward. Uh and that the supply chain. at that time was not being alleviated.

So We s decided that we were gonna sell off. our assets and have this time to try to sell the company while we sell off. The inventory. For nine months.

And ultimately return the m whatever cash is left to the creditors. And How much inventory did you guys have? At that time in the US. We had it the thing about

That Vincent didn't mention is not only were the freight rates up But the average Time in Port. Also spike during that time. From

Fifty. Days to a hundred days. Or seven weeks to fourteen weeks. Wow. Manpower too.

Move it out. Quickly. Yes. So it flowed that flowed, but In parts of twenty twenty one, we were really, really short.

And then because we had to over order towards the end of that, we started getting a huge surplus. Right. Um by By the beginning of twenty twenty two, we had like nine months. And we had a bunch of cash sitting. In

Coconut chips and rice chips. At our warehouse. Um I cannot imagine how difficult this time was. I'm sure it's still even raw now, talking about it, um in you know, in late twenty twenty three.

But how are you guys coping with With it, you know. just personally, em emotionally Um You know.

having to for a variety of reasons, mainly because of the circumstances of the global pandemic. Having to wind down this this brand and business that you'd worked on for over ten years at that point. Yeah, I felt

Like I lost. Purpose. Um, I felt like I lost a loved one. I felt uh Like I let my team down. Um, I remember going to the park and crying and then

Yeah. And I also remember Telling when I have to tell the team this, like just breaking down. Like I couldn't hold it together. I'm just crying as well. So for me there are a lot of feelings of loss and grief. Um Yeah. As if it were, you know.

uh a part of my family. Andrew Hebba for you. Guy, I think this is why. Um My brother and I were such a good

It's because we're so different. Mm. Um I felt a huge sense of relief.

Huge. Hm. And One of the reasons why. Is because

I felt like in the The months leading up to the Decision. Including even on your show last time we were there. We had to wear somewhat of a mask.

In front of the public. In front of employees. In front of creditors. Um our friends and family. And

In making this decision. I felt like we could start to take that mask off. Yeah. And that you could start to Move to the next.

chapter in your life maybe. I I'm wondering, Vincent, back to you, um Ca I I you know I I'm feeling that. sadness for sure, and I I really

Um empathize with that. And I I wonder how you What helped you? Just Emotionally.

Top. Cope with it. How what was helpful? During that time. It was about I'd say a three month. Depression or depressed period.

And um I sought out a therapist during that time just to talk through these issues. Uh I I have a support group of other entrepreneurs and Yeah. they were able to lend some perspective on lows that they had went through as well.

Um, but I also leaned on Andrew. I mean Andrew is my rock during that time and he really uh helps And I keep You know, it kept reminding me that like Hey, this is just chapter one, you know.

We learn so much from this and we're just gonna put our learnings to work to us in the next chapter. And uh hearing things like that would would keep me motivated. Yeah. I've been going to therapy for like ten years. I've had much more time to process my feelings along the way, I think, than Vincent did, and that's why I think that's why Emotionally, I think I was more ready.

Mm. And I'm I I wasn't as Swaiden, maybe I should have been. Maybe that's more human events. Like maybe I should have been like that. Maybe there's something missing, but Um I know I did emotionally feel prepared.

I guess in the midst of this, Vincent, you had Heard of an opportunity. Um And it was with a Um a small

brand that that was working on or or making and selling Direct to consumer frozen soup dumplings, Chinese soup dumplings. Um And you connected with them and and Basically start working with them.

Yeah, so I I sometimes get investment opportunities sent to me and I usually Don't don't pay them much mind, but one really caught my eye, which was Um There's a restaurant in Seattle that had to shut down during Covid and they lost almost all their revenue and they pivoted to shipping frozen soup dumplings locally. And when we're

got out, you know, they got demand from other cities uh and started expanding to other cities. At the time it was uh XEJ and now it's it's Mila. The name of the company is Mila. Mila, yeah. And when I studied abroad in Shanghai. uh in college, you know, I had soup dumplings there.

And when I tried these, I thought they tasted authentic, like exactly like I had in China. Yeah. Um And you know, it it was a a unique product because uh you know it was you it came frozen raw and you had to steam it at home. But the result is a restaurant quality. Dumpling and uh I was just I was just I had to get involved. So I actually wrote a check in

Invested in the company back in Twenty twenty one. And then Towards the middle of twenty twenty two. Uh I got an update from the founders that hey

you know, we're doing really well. We grew five hundred percent. Uh, and we're next we're looking at going into retail. And so I connected with them about the retail piece'cause I've been doing that for the last Yeah, ten years and um I I joined them at the end of twenty twenty two. Well, And

Up until uh the the end of twenty twenty two. The idea was you would wind down the brand and sell the assets and then you know, return as much as you could to the creditors.

And that would be it. That would be the end of Dang. That was Basically where you guys were headed. Yes. Uh it from a very from a paper perspective. Um

That made sense to s like the what you're describing makes sense. And Vincent and I Also just Wanted the brand to live on.

So we say assets, but we were really selling the brand and everything. So that that could live on with somebody else. So you were looking for somebody to take on the The brand name. Yes. And maybe they could continue it. But but so far at up until You know, that time you had no luck. You could not find anybody.

Correct. Um But I guess eventually you did. Uh Vincent, you met somebody at a party. Who just happened to be t tell me the story.

Yeah, so I went to a holiday party in December twenty twenty two. And it was an eighties theme party. And so I was wearing an Adidas tracksuit with, you know, a boom box uh in the style of Run DMC. And I saw someone else who had a similar outfit also wearing an Adidas track suit. And so we started talking. Um we got around to hey, what do we do? And

Uh I told them about Dang and you know, I told him, Oh, you know, we're we're winding it down. And he said, Don't wind it down, like it's a great brand, you know, maybe we'll buy it. And he w he happened to be the founder of Safe Catch, which imports uh seafood from Thailand. And so the more we started talking, we're like, Okay, this could work. He Already imports products from Thailand. He has a team over there. He knows our brand, he knows our customers.

Yeah, let's let's flesh this out. So so this this this company, essentially that you I mean this guy that you met at a pa at the party who's had a whole operation in Thailand. he took over the brand. He's he's now taken over the brand and the label. How how are you able to to work all that out? Um

It ended up Working out where He took over the operations, he bought the assets, uh, and he's able to keep the brand going. So I worked with him on retaining as much. customer distribution as possible. So I had to call up Whole Foods and let them know what was happening and let them know hey, there's gonna be a gap in inventory, but we'll be back. Um, and luckily they were very, very cooperative and very, very uh, you know, generous about about holding our space.

And so Dang is still operating as the same, more or less the same brand with the same products, just now Owned by somebody else. We're still on shelves at Whole Foods. We're still at Amazon. Uh, you know, they we we have calls with them and advise them on customers and new products and um You know. Even higher.

And yeah, they're they're continuing to operate it. So I'm glad that you know our our product at least is still available for those people that that really love it. Um and I'm really proud that you know we're still we're still around. Yeah. And and our

Baby faces. And our signatures are still on the back of the packaging. And Vinny. We should you and I should have a discussion afterwards about the legality of that, but we could talk about that later. Yeah.

We're gonna take a quick break, but when we come back, more on the future of dang foods and what's next for Andrew and Vincent. Stay with us, you're listening to how I built this lab. Hey, welcome back to How I Built this Lab. I'm Guy Raz. Here's more of my conversation with Vincent and Andrew Kichirachegarn of Dang Foods. It's interesting, Andrew I'm Obviously Vincent is now. fully in in you know

Two feet in with Mila. Um trying to turn that into a a a bigger brand. And Andrew, I from what I gather You are doing some consulting work helping You know, particularly helping other startups that need to wind down their businesses for a variety of reasons, kind of helping

Walk them through that process. Yeah it's It's interesting because when Vinny Ask me to join. Dang, I didn't have any food.

And beverage CPG experience. I just did it'cause it was a cool opportunity. I'm trying to help my brother. And it'll be it would have it was gonna be cool to do something together. Yeah. Like It could have been any industry that did better for the world. It could have been any industry. So I

I did a lot of thinking when I was there in my final years of day. I was like oh like I don't know if this is my industry. This is where my passion is. Um I'm just helping out my brother. 'Cause he needs the help and this is fun.

And Something happened. The day. In April. That we made that decision to wind down.

And it was A really tough day. For Vincent and it was a tough day when we had to tell the employees. What was going on. Uh and when when I had to call the creditors, that was all tough.

But I did feel all of a sudden rejuvenated and really engaged. Because I really wanted to tell people what was going on. And I really wanted to let him know what our plan was. And

ideally give. our employees some severance or give him a little package to stay with us. Or tell the investors who we hadn't been keeping in the loop what was going on. Let the creditors know.

that it's a tough situation that they might not get their money back, but we're trying everything we can. And hopefully in nine months. We'll be able to give them back something. Yeah. I really liked

Uh being on the hot spot and doing it. And Um I don't know if it's a passion. But it's something that's engaging. Um during this process.

And and Basically, I mean you can take your experience and Right, and help Help people f kind of Navigate it.

For many people it's traumatic. It's traumatic. Yeah, and It's It it's traumatic and I

I mean I was There's a couple of things that come to mind here. Vinny, I remember when we were having a hard time in twenty twenty one, twenty twenty two. I was like Vinny. If we call this the Dang Foods Company.

It's gonna be harder for us to make these dis decisions, especially as a fiduciary to the board. So I wanna call this the A B C company when things are going hard. I don't want to call this the Dang Food Company. Which was named after our mother.

Hm. And I think I think others need help with that guidance. And remember, Vincent was the one to really create this. He was the real creator in this and

I came in To help scale it. Um And so What I learned from this and what I want to tell other people too is that I

Dang food's company, the entity failed. We are not failures. No question about it. I mean I mean he here's the thing, right? Like how I built this as a show about brands and how they were built and Obviously it's a show about successful brands, but

Failure is a I mean it's a t tricky word, right? Because it it Feflating, but Um But it can also be immensely valuable. Incredibly valuable.

um as a tool To help you prepare for the next journey, right. And and so Vincent, I mean I I can't imagine How much you learned? Well,

Can you talk about some of the things that you're gonna that you've brought with you to your new Company that I don't know. Let's start with the things that you did. Right. What are some of the things you did right at Dang?

that worked and that you will continue to do. I would say Yeah, focusing on the product at the very beginning. Is is the utmost importance. So

Making sure that you really understand your product and why people are buying it and who's buying it and when are they consuming it. Um and this is all kind of goes under this Guys of product market fit. Um, I think that's super important. And I think that's something that

you know, founders need to be obsessive about uh at the beginning because your success is ultimately gonna depend on how much product market fit you have. Um so I would say that's the number one thing. Uh and then

Yeah, I think Making sure That As a company, you're you're set up for that success. So You know, now, after ten years, we understand that it's not just

having a good product, but you actually have the operations team, you gotta have the finance team, you gotta have marketing team to really back it up. And so if you know have one part that's working but one part that isn't, it's not really gonna add up. And and so how about you, Andrew? And what are some of the things that you You you guys did well, at dang, said But

y you know, you you'll continue to kind of use you know, in your in your sort of professional career. There's a concept. Uh That we labeled disagree and commit.

So I felt like Vince and I were pretty aligned. For most things. And there were certain things Where we weren't. aligned. And I think we fought pretty hard.

Um One of them being the energy bars, the dang bars. that be launched in twenty Nineteen. And

Ultimately it came time to make the decision. And Vincent was like All right. I'm gonna do this, we're gonna do this, and this is why. And I know you're

Concerned. But just like trust me. And I did that. And so The disagree and commit, the disagreement happens behind closed doors.

And then Uh And then we come out on the other side, we're aligned. Publicly. And we move on.

And you keep going. That's something I will take. To the future. And and what about things that you didn't

But now reflecting on it. You You Wouldn't do that again. I'd say spending too much on marketing or on demos.

Too early. When you're really focused should be focused on product market fit and that you have a really cool good core line in understanding what the consumers need and want and continuing to tinker without. Before spending That much money.

On marketing. I think that's that's a big lesson, specifically for CPG. And and And did you Do I mean is that something that you guys Probably spent too much on initially.

I think at the beginning we did things like go to consumer shows. So there are these shows like Green Festival and Fit Expo, women's expo that were meant to hit at a specific consumer. And we tried a lot of them. Without actually. Trying to pinpoint who the consumer was before that. Um I think we saw it as a way to

Spread, you know, word about the brand. But You know, looking back at like there were just too many different shows and too many different types of people. We should be more precise about who we're targeting. And then We ended up having to redesign our packaging.

multiple times because you know, I think we were probably swayed at the time we had just raised some money and so um our investors had a perspective on, you know, what they thought we were, but rather than dig down and say, Okay, we are an Asian American snack company, you know, we we kind of went in the direction of, oh, we're just we're a healthy snack company, we're we're a natural food company. Um, which to us wasn't

differentiated when you really like picked it apart. Yeah, there's a lot of healthy SAC companies. But What was unique to us is the fact that we're using, you know an authentic recipe from Thai cuisine. And so leaning into that Later on.

was uh it felt better and it felt more authentic to who we were. I will say that our family or specifically our father Lent some money into the company. And it was not an immaterial amount.

And he did. Get a payout. Uh With the creditors'cause he was a part of that class. Uh equal to everyone else. Um

But he was not made whole. And Um I for a long time felt a lot of shame about that. Um

And Vincent, I think you know, we call them And I remember him saying Like it's cool. I

I still love you guys and Like um I'm happy to have helped you have this experience. With each other.

Yeah, I mean I think both of you guys are parents, right? I am. Yes. Yes. And so imagine if your child asked you for some help to start their business and it didn't work out. Like

Y you'd still be super proud of them, right? Like just think about your own kid. Yeah, I think you know, the fact that he Uh he saw a lot of himself in what we were doing, too. So he moved to the US in nineteen seventy seven and started a candle business and he was importing candles from Thailand. Um, there my him and my mom also had a silk flower business. So

You know, we were We actually grew up in those businesses and going to the trade shows and so we learn a lot of the Yeah, the skills and the lingo. um from from growing up around that. And the fact that we were doing a similar business model, but with coconut chips and rice chips, you know, I think he saw that hey, he had influenced us and he was probably uh proud that he was able to influence us, you know, enough to start a business and have it run for ten years.

You know, obviously Vincent. Um you're involved in this new company and Andrew you are doing consulting work, do either of you imagine?

With all that you've learned from Dang. Maybe starting something uh either together or separately. Starting something new again one day? A a new business? I could definitely see s doing something. I don't think it would be the

In the exact same uh consumer product. industry niche. So what I mean is that Yeah. There's a lot of challenges with

Coming up with a consumer product. Yeah, bringing it to market. dealing with distribution and retailers. It it it's all the chips are stacked against you as a smaller player. Um And

You know I I don't think that it's uh it's just not a it's not a game that I want to play again necessarily. However, I think if you can find a niche or maybe a technological advantage Um

Or be a part of the ecosystem in a different way, like You know. creating I don't say say it's like AI for flavor innovation, something like that. Um, then I think that's super interesting because I can, you know, use what I've learned about this industry. Uh.

to to my advantage and uh come at it with a different angle. But I mean, a as you guys say, I mean the brand persists and In ten, fifteen, twenty years' time, even when you're Far, far removed from it. Food, sting products.

Might be thriving. Yeah, I hope it's around until I'm no longer around. Um You know, it's it's nice to be able to walk around uh Whole Foods with my three year old. and pick up a bag and you know, I think the baby picture on the back of me and Andrew, I was about three years old. And Andrew's about one.

And so when my daughter sees that picture, she she says, Oh, that's me'cause I look just like her. So it's pretty cool to be able to walk around and show her that. You know, it's cool to definitely see ourselves. Or or or or what we've what we what Vincent specifically created on shelf. at Whole Foods and it's still there, it might be there for the next ten years, might grow. Um

There's another thing that I'm very proud of. There's a lot of Other Asian inspired brands now. Um The names that I think of are Flyby Jing.

Sanzo. Um om S If that I believe our Uh

Following What we've done. And they're doing it with Arguably A lot of anti auth authenticity.

In spreading Asian flavors. Asian culture. From day one. And I'm really proud to see them.

Doing really well. in the space. And hopefully it leads to more Um Asian entrepreneurs in the future. Taking a leap of faith.

Andrew Vincent. Thank you so much. Thank you, guy. Thank you. I I also want to say like I

Um Us being able to be on your show. is like one of the pinnacles. Of our time at Day. Oh thanks. That's so that's so nice to hear.

Like there's others that are like Oh, I think about the exit or I think about this, but Yours is definitely up there if it's not like the number one thing that we look back on this experience. And we have like a freaking codified recording of like the highs and lows of all of it and like What better honor to like share that with like millions of people. And for us to like have this

With us for life. So I just I I personally want to thank you. That's Vincent and Andrew Kicheratragon. Co founders of Dang Foods. Hey, thanks so much for listening to How I Built This Lab This Week. Please make sure to click the follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode of the show, and as always, it's free. This episode was produced by Carla Esteves with editing by John Isabella.

Our music was composed by Ramteen Arablui, our audio engineer was Neil Rausch. Our production team at How I Built This includes Alex Chung, Casey Herman, Chris Massini, JC Howard, Carrie Thomson, Malia Agudello, and Sam Paulson. Neva Grant is our supervising editor. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to how I built this lab.

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