Dang Foods: Vincent and Andrew Kitirattragarn

And Got it. Two feet of table space in a shared booth. So We stood in the aisles just we made a wall and it was me, my dad, my brother, and my girlfriend at the time, now my wife.

And Nobody got through the wall without tasting some coconut chips. people would just toss'em in their mouth and say They say dang. Dang, these are great.

They say, Dang, these are really good. From MPR, it's how I built this. A show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements.

I'm Guy Raz, and on the show today, how Vincent Kiti Ratchagar took a simple Thai ingredient, a toasted coconut chip. and joined up with his brother to build Dang Foods, an Asian American stack brand now sold in thousands of stores across the country. I spend an inexcusable amount of time in grocery stores. I stroll up and down the aisles looking for interesting things to try. Last week, I bought a box of frozen plant-based chicken nuggets. I don't even like plant-based chicken nuggets, but the brand leaped out at me. Covering nearly 80% of the box, a giant rooster head being fed a plant-based chicken nugget.

That alone made me want to buy it. I'm a sucker, what can I say? But really what I do when I buy these products is show a kind of silent appreciation for their branding. A really good design or logo that pops suggests that the people behind the product have thought very intentionally about what it is they want to convey to you, the person who passes by thousands of items at the grocery store. There are lots of choices, lots of plant-based nuggets, but one has a giant rooster being fed a nugget on the box. Anyway, today's story is in some ways

About branding. Even if you haven't heard of Dang An Asian inspired snack brand that makes coconut chips, rice chips, and energy bars, even if you haven't heard of it? Just keep it in mind next time you walk down the snack aisle at Whole Foods or Target or Kroger because you will see it. Dang. In bright greens and oranges and reds, even the name.

Dang, as in dang that's good. Which happens to be their tagline. jumps out at you. The company was founded by two American brothers of Thai descent. They named it Dang after their mom. Dang is actually her nickname.

Today, you can find their products in more than 10,000 retailers across the US. And even though the type of snacks they sell are among the most popular in parts of Asia, Getting Americans to pick toasted coconut chips and sriracha rice chips over Fritos and Lay's hasn't always been easy. Ding is still a relatively small brand compared to others we've had on the show, but the founders

Andrew and Vincent Kittiragarn. Manage to get it on the shelves. thousands of stores without any connections, money, or industry experience at the start. Dang was primarily older brother Vincent's project in the early years. His brother Andrew joined full time in 2013, so you'll hear more from Vincent in the first part of this interview. Andrew will pop in more towards the middle.

Vincent and Andrew's parents both immigrated to the US from Thailand in the late 1970s, so their dad, Vance, could attend graduate school. Once he finished his degree, the parents launched an import business in New York. selling products like wooden baskets and silk flowers made in Thailand. The brothers were born in New York and spent their summers visiting family back in Bangkok. But their parents' marriage ended when Vincent and Andrew were young.

and their dad moved to New Jersey to start a new import business selling candles. Their mom eventually got into real estate. And for the brothers, having divorced entrepreneur parents meant that They were often home alone. Where they learn to rely?

On each other. I I'd say we did everything together. We went we played we went to chess tournaments together, we played Little League together, we played baseball. Yeah, we were always like making up games around the house, so I remember yeah, growing up in an apartment building on the twenty third floor. Uh luckily we've lived near a big park, so

Yeah, Andrew and I went out to the park to play a lot. Well what's interesting is I I think back on it And All of the sports that I played, Vincent played before me. Like I and it's funny and chess too, like we both picked that up together. We happen to like a lot of the same things with sports and With that and even with academia and

I was like if I'd had a different brother Maybe I would have liked a completely different set of things. Did your parents Have a difficult relationship? When you were growing up?

with each other, they had a very tenuous relationship. Like I Yeah, I remember multiple. times where they were in the same room and there were screaming matches and There's one time where I'm I was helping my dad at a trade show at you know, at his booth.

And afterwards we went to go get dinner. And we went to a Thai restaurant near the trade show. And my mom was there. And she was s eating at the same restaurant. Yeah, there was uh There's a fight and there's a beer thrown.

on somebody on one of them threw a beer on the other. So when your parents split up, you guys ended up living with your mom? Predominantly, yeah. I mean we go visit our dad on weekends. Every other weekend, every Wednesday. And he was in New Jersey and your mom was in New York City, right? Yeah.

And You know She's she was a busy single working mom. And we both Had to

kind of figure out how to feed ourselves sometimes'cause she was too busy to cook. I I remember, you know, we could either order McDonald's'cause they delivered at the time. Or we could learn to cook. And so I think some of my early memories about

Yeah, cooking came for Cooking for my brothers, cooking for Andrew, cooking for our other brother. Yeah, it's funny that we ended up in the natural food industry because we were ordering McDonald's, like Domino's. Yeah.

When we were growing up and loved it. Like we I remember we had like had them on speed dial. Yeah. I loved McDonald's when I was a kid. I love the sau I love the sweet and sour and barbecue sauce. I would dip my nugget, my McNugget in the sweet and sour and then the barbecue sauce. Just like took over the world for us. Sugar fat and protein. Um tell me a little bit about

Sort of the culture at home. Your parents are From Thailand. They were born in Thailand. But their parents or grandparents actually came from China. So Tell me.

what that meant at home. Did you Have Chinese traditions. In addition to Thai traditions at home, or was it Primarily.

sort of Thai food and Thai cultural traditions that you remember. I wanna say it was a blend. Um, and each parent kind of treated it differently. So you know, at our dad's house, uh on lunar near or or Chinese New Year.

Yeah, we would. Um kinda get together and you know have a meal and Uh sometimes we're red and collect Angpao, which are these you know money in envelopes from relatives.

Um and so I think he was keen on you know, keeping some of those Chinese traditions alive. And at the same time, you know, when we went to his house we would eat kanji in the morning. Yeah, which is a There's a lot of Thai Chinese cuisine that we grew up eating. Yeah, I remember there was a fourth grade school project where we had to bring in a dish.

Yeah. um from your country, your family, country of origin. And so I brought in My mom helped me make chickens setae, which is like grilled chicken on sticks. With peanut butter with peanut sauce, yeah. Yeah. Mm. And I remember bringing it in for all the parents to come and eat.

And looking around. And seeing that my tray was the first one that was completely empty. And I had so much pride, I was like, Oh my God. Yeah. Everybody likes my chicken setay. And

You know, when you move to a new Country? You've you lose a lot of stuff, so you might change your name. And you might change the way you dress. And you might

Change the way you talk,'cause you have to learn a new language. But I think food is That one thing. That sticks with you the longest. And even though I didn't grow up in Thailand.

I have so much affinity for Thai food because That's what I ate growing up. Hm. Um so so Vincent, I want to fast forward d just a bit,'cause I know um I know you went up to college and and and eventually finished uh a master's degree at

at Cornell in engineering and and and management. Um Uh And and around uh I think two thousand nine you were living in Washington D C and and working at I guess like a a sustainability non profit. Tell me about it.

It was a nonprofit and uh they had a a program that helped uh large institutions Create and implement. environmentally preferable purchasing programs. Um does that mean? So large institutions have to buy a lot of stuff, right? And they have policies on what they have to buy. Um so universities, cities, states Some of them have

policies that say, Okay, if you're gonna buy a vehicle, you have to buy the most eff fuel efficient vehicle available. Um, so what we would do with this nonprofit was create guides. on how to Create these policies.

Um so I was the manager of this this program. And and while you were there, you also I guess Start working at a Thai restaurant in In D C, right? Yeah, so

I had an inkling that Thai food in the US punched above its weight. There's so many Thai restaurants, but Generally too, they had the same dishes. Which were Americanized Thai dishes like Pad Thai.

Right. And there's nothing wrong with Pad Thai, but You know, it's The way that it's served in America is typically sweeter than the way it's served in Thailand. And you know, Andrew and I traveled to Thailand. We have a lot of family there. And every time we went there, you know, we were like, Hey, the food here is so different, you know, and And so I was like, you know, there there has to be something else you could do here in bringing all these dishes from

From Thailand to the US. And I remember telling my friend, Hey, I think there's some opportunity in Thai food, maybe I'll start a restaurant. He was like, You should probably work in a restaurant before you start a restaurant. You you worked at a at a place called Thai Crossing, which is for people from the D C area, it's like one of the best known Thai restaurants in the city and and very acclaimed Thai restaurant. But

You weren't doing this for money, right? I mean you had a you had a full time day job. I had a full time job. Um, we did have reduced schedule. So I work four days a week and with my extra days, um, I went and help out at Tie Crossing, but you're right. Uh I Definitely didn't do it for the pay. And yeah, I I think after that experience I was like, No way. What what was it about that experience that

I don't know, like quashed that. That dream. I mean The hours, the you're on your feet, you know, for half of a day. At the end of the night.

It didn't feel like I had accomplished something, it felt more like relief. That I got through it. You know, I just didn't want that lifestyle. I I I knew that from the outset. All right, so you're living in the D C area.

Doing a stand at a Thai restaurant. And then In two thousand ten, you moved to California. Yeah. for different job. Um

This startup was called Good Guide. Yep. And let's go. Let's go now. I wanna go back to you. Andrew because now the two of you are living in the same place. You went on to university, I think you went to UC Santa Barbara, and you ended up

Yes, I um majored in business economics with an emphasis in accounting. Um But the short form of that is like economics and accounting and joined uh a firm called KPM G right after school. Were you perfectly happy d working at as an accountant? I mean, was it you know, you're probably getting paid pretty well.

And uh imagine you were doing some travel. Was it was it pretty good? I think I saw an opening at Santa Barbara to go into accounting and then get into a big four accounting. Firm. Yeah. I think a lot about risk. It provides a lot of downside protection, like in the event of a recession or anything I could always fall back on. being an accountant.

There's always a need for accountants. Always a need. Yeah. Always a shortage. So all right, so you are now both in San Francisco in the Bay Area. In the meantime, Vincent, did you Um, you had come from D C where you were working

At a kitchen. clearly thinking about maybe doing something in food. Did you continue to think about that when you moved to the Bay Area or you now full on in this startup thinking. Yeah, maybe this is what I'm gonna do.

I think for the first six months I was Very focused on The startup that I was in. I think after about six months I started you know, kinda keeping an eye open for what else I could do and

Andrew and I lived in this. seven bedroom house in uh Chinatown in San Francisco with a bunch of roommates. And I remember we used to have Like monthly dinners. So it could be

Pretty big elaborate dinner is for Large amounts of people. I just love creating food for people. What w what kind of food were you making? Yeah, so from the

tie crossing experience. You know, of working in a restaurant. I remember cooking dishes like Um red duck, grey curry with duck. And I made that, you know, for for my friends and By the way, Andrew, are you a a good cook? No. No, okay It's funny, I I actually am really good at like three dishes. And I only cook those three dishes.

Meanwhile, Vincent, you are getting more and more into The food scene. In The Bay Area. And I guess you um

You started actually cooking. There's like a pop up. Like this this is a big thing. There were these underground farmers markets and like food markets that would happen in cities. I remember there was a bunch in LA and in New York and In the Bay Area, and there's one called the S F Underground Market.

What was it? How did you even find out about it? Tell me the story. Yeah, I found out about it. I wanna say Threw a friend. Who knew that I like to cook? And it was

It was a group that got together at a nightclub and created a night market. And they got around your food safety regulations by having people sign a waiver at the front saying, If I get sick, it's not your fault. And what would happen? There would just there would be tables inside the nightclub. Of different foods. Exactly. Yeah. And they had an audition.

So you had to bring a dish to an audition. And You leave the dish there and They judged it in. They either told you, Hey, you're in or you're not in.

What'd you bring? I made a chicken setay burger. Hm. And before the event, the New York Times had written an article. about this event.

So I thought it was going to be Way. Way overpopulated. And they told me to make a hundred fifty servings and I was like, No You know what, I'll make four hundred servings because I think that's just gonna be nuts. Like way way too credit. So I bought

Organic chicken thighs at Costco, boneless. Nice. And uh Pandasal, which is a Filipino bun. Yep. Marinated. the chicken. So I have all these buckets and coolers just filled with chicken that's marinating and coconut milk. and all these spices all over my house. And

I remember opening up shop and starting to serve people and then realizing wow there's not as many people here as I thought there would be. And as it turns out. Th there were a lot of people, but they couldn't get in. There's a sh a line around the block.

But the place only held a certain amount of people and it couldn't allow in everybody. So after you you successfully sold the sete burgers at the San Francisco Underground Market, did you say, All right, I want to come back next week, what what did you do what'd you do next? I think two months later I was like, All right, let's let's give it another shot. And my mom

t gave me an index card with a recipe on it and it was for a Thai lettuce wrap. Called Miangum. And she said when she was in college. She would race out of her classes to this one vendor on the street. Yeah.

And it's made of these six or seven ingredients, um, as peanuts. It has Young ginger. And I was like, Okay, I'll do my own spin on it. Um, I'll do it with Like braised short ribs instead of dried shrimp, like they do in Thailand.

And that was the idea that the next time you wouldn't do setay burgers, but you would do these These raps. Yes. And she said one of the ingredients is toasted coconut. Now you can't buy toasted coconut in the US. But what you can do is go buy shredded coconut and toast it yourself. Just unsweetened coconut. I couldn't find unsweetened, so I bought sweetened coconut.

And the traditional way to do it is you put it in a a walk. Turn on the heat and you start starting. And the moisture evaporates and it turns golden brown. And what she didn't tell me was it it creates this amazing smell. And because I was making twenty pounds of this stuff. I had multiple burners going.

The entire house smelled like toasted cocoa. And it's filling the house with like a sweet nutty aroma. And we had multiple roommates, seven roommates and They rooms. Saying, What are you cooking? Smells amazing.

And they started just dipping their hands in the pan and and eating it. And I was like First off, get your hands out of this pot because you know, this is gross. Um But secondly, this is really interesting that you know all of these Friends of ours love to eat. This toasted coconut straight out of the pan.

Alright, so you're making this'cause you need it for the next iteration of the underground farmers market. But You're thinking, wait a minute. Maybe there's something with these coconut chips. This shredded coconut. Yeah, so

I was so captivated by everybody's reaction to just the toasted coconut that I was like, hey, maybe We could create a product that's just toasted coconut. So all right, now l just to be clear right,'cause when people think shredded coconut, I think, certainly in the United States, they think of like Coconut and macarons, right? Like shredded sort of syrupy kind of Trickily sweet.

Um Coconut product or like an almond joy, right? Like shredded coconut. You're talking about like Shaved coconut. Right. That's that's what you were working with.

Yeah, long strips of Shaved coconut. Uh toasted until crispy. It tasted and felt like like a crunchy sweet chip. And and just from that experience You start to think.

This could be like a snack food. This Coconut. Shavings like could be something that people just munch on. Yeah. Because people wanted to snack on it.

at my Home, kitchen. Why wouldn't they want to snack on and buy it at a at a supermarket. And I remember I called Andrew, who was in Thailand at the time. And asked him, Hey, have you ever seen any toasted coca cut snacks or chips? And he shipped me a box.

And then we identified the sample that we liked and talked to the manufacturer. And it was already toasted. You didn't have to do anything. Correct. But I I kept some of that sample the samples from the box. And I heard about This food show, a trade show called The Fancy Food Show.

Which was at D C that summer. And I was like, you know what, I'm gonna bring some there. I don't know anything about this industry. I don't know anyone in this industry. But If I can get people to taste it, maybe they'll tell me if it can be a product or not. Well hang hang on for a sec.

I just I'm just trying to uh I'm just trying to understand this because I Would not have had the foresight or the competence. At that point in my life. To think about. something like a food show.'Cause you had no experience in the food world.

I remember it back to when I was a kid And my parents would take me to Trade shows, they take on gift shows. And That's where the entire industry goes.

In order to you know, find new items and talk about them and Get business, right? So I was like, all right, well what's the big trade show in food? and decided to book a flight from San Francisco to DC And

We took some of the samples from the box that I got sent. And I put coconut chips into these little plastic souffle cups. and put a lid on it and put a sticker on it that said dang. And we called it Dang because my mom's name is Dang and when you eat it It's it's dang good. Like You're like dang, this is good.

Dang, these are delicious. It's a w like my kids use that word. So it's like I remember saying it when I was a kid. It's a euphemism. Right. Say dang. It's like fudge. Say fudge. So and and dang is like such a great word. But your and your mom's name is dang.

Yeah, so everyone in Thailand gets a nickname, right? Like a short nickname. And so hers is dang. So people I call her P Dang or New Dang and um Yeah, we just I it just it came to me on a run and I was like, All right, let's let's put that as our logo. So all right, so you're you're gonna you've got

Yeah. You're gonna go to this trade show. And Uh you got the name. And so did you get a table?

Like a booth at this fancy food show? No. So We didn't want to spend more money by getting a booth. And we didn't have a product. Yeah. We had Chi in these little cups.

Right. But I did want to get feedback on the product, which is the chips. Like just the test of coconut chips. And so We I filled. These souffle cups, probably a couple hundred of them.

with coconut chips and then Yeah, put a sticker on top with my contact info. Right. Um and the dang logo. And just to just to just to be clear. When you went into the trade show.

'Cause you did not have a booth. You just brought a huge duffel bag with you? Like you were just go hauling this huge bag and like nobody Was like They they're okay with that? They're like, Yeah, come on in, you can just bring it up. I don't think that they allow that, but nobody stopped us. Nobody Okay, I mean you're hauling a giant duffel bag full of samples.

And you're just walking in and and That was it. Yeah. So I walked in with a messenger bag with samples, and the first person I saw getting out of the escalator had a whole foods batch. And I was like, Great. And I I stopped him, I was like, Hey

Can you try these coconut chips and let me know what you think. And he was nice enough to stop. And try the product. Which I learned later on, like that's not a good way to approach a buyer. And

He tr stopped and tried the product and said Yeah, this is really good. But You don't really have a product, you have you know chips in this little cup. I need to see Pricing and I need to see packaging.

And I thought to myself. Great. Like All I need to do is create A package?

And then We can sell this product. It was enough to give me the confidence to take the next step. Let me come back in just a moment. How Vincent decides to turn those coconut chips into a product?

And how a lucky break from a certain Kardashian sister helps to spread the word. Stay with us, I'm Guy Roz, and you're listening to How I Built This. Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's 2011 and Vincent is sold on the idea of making a coconut chip brand, but he won't be shaving the coconuts himself in the Bay Area.

He needs to import the product from Thailand. And thankfully He knows some people. So I asked my family Like, hey, is there anybody that can help me? And one of our cousins.

Yeah, became our supplier manager. So you had a cousin there who could be On the ground. Find the suppliers for you. And which is

obviously hugely helpful because you couldn't You couldn't be there yourself. Exactly. So we talked to all these manufacturers, um figured out the one that we liked. The next step for us was hey, testing it with consumers.

So I think we went to Thailand that Christmas. And then I brought back with me a duffel bag full of I think it was one ounce bags with stickers on them. Because I wanted to Uh so

consumers what a product would look like with this. So when you came back to I think it's now January twenty twelve. You still you're still working. for the startup, right, at the time. Mm-hmm. It sounds like you've got The wheels are in motion on this thing.

And you want to test this out. 'Cause you had some success at the trade show. the previous summer. So who are you gonna test this out on? I mean you had You still

packaging them yourself, right? Yeah, so Patch them and These foil bags. Um, and each of these you know, now it's a product, right? So we have you know ch coconut chips in a bag with a sticker on it and it says toasted coconut chips on it, and it says dang. And it has a picture of coconuts.

And I found a consumer show. called the New Taste Marketplace, which is like a artisanal market. In Saint Gregory's Church in San Francisco. Um and we did pretty well. Uh that's where we really learned how to talk about the product and say, Hey, you know, these are coconut chips, they're a healthy snack.

Um they've got all the health benefits of coconut oil. And you can put it on your salads or your ice cream or your yogurt. And so that's where we really kind of got the pitch down for how to sell coconut chips. And this yeah, this was probably right around the time when coconut water was starting to blow up. Yeah, at this time coconut in general was very trendy.

And so that became our anchor. When we started talking about it, we said Hey, do you like coconut water? Hey, do you like coconut oil? Like You probably like our coconut chips. Yeah.

And coconut oil also, by the way, around this time Two thousand ten, eleven, twelve. 'Cause this is also coincides with this whole paleo keto kind of craze that blew up. Not really crazy'cause it's still round. And a lot of people are getting into

healthy fats like coconut oil. Yeah, that became part of our pitch. And I think Trader Joe's Trader Joe's was selling coconut oil. Trader Joe's Also came out with a coconut chip around the same time we did. Which wow. I thought was

Bad because I was like I thought we were gonna be the first. Yeah. But It turned out later that it was actually a good thing because Trader Joe's stays in Trader Joe's, right? Yes. So it actually helped us with this education component of people not knowing what a coconut chip was. And people who shop at Trader Joe's are also gonna shop at Whole Foods and other stores. So it actually helped us a lot. And by the way, were you talking to your dad or mom? Because they were both entrepreneurs. I mean, did either of them say

Yeah, go for it. This is a This is exciting. Or were they like not sure well I think before we even started it, I remember talking to both of them My mom said, Hey, you're really good with food. I think you should do something with food. And my dad said

If you're gonna start something You should utilize our family in Thailand,'cause we have this huge network there. That could be a competitive advantage. And it I ended up doing kind of a combination of the two, which is food with family in Thailand. So They didn't say specifically, hey, this is a good idea, do this, but they kinda gave me a larger framework to think about how to start a business. Alright, so you Um

You're clearly Vincent. I mean Tell me t take me to like twenty twelve, the first sort of five m four or five months of that year. Is this all you're thinking about? 'Cause you still have another job, like you've got a day job working for the startup.

I I was definitely on a kind of adrenaline rush for the first few months of just thinking about this and I was pretty committed to making it a company at that point. And We heard about this other trade show. in March twenty twelve called the Expo Natural Product Expo West. And I didn't know about it.

Until a month before. And I was like, Oh wow, maybe we can get A booth, but they they ran out of booths. So what we did was we Got two feet of table space in a shared booth with dozens of vendors. And

We somehow fit four people into a two foot table space. So one behind the table and three in front of the table standing the aisles. So We stood in the aisles. Just we made a wall, and in order to pass through. That aisle. You had to go past one of our our people and it was me, my dad, my brother, and my girlfriend at the time, now my wife.

And Nobody got through the wall without tasting some coconut chips. People would just toss them in their mouth and say They say dang. Dang. This is great. They say dang, these are really good. So you were getting business cards from buyers.

Large and small. stores. Yeah, so we had connected with a few whole foods regions with H E B, which is a big grocery store. X Access. Um and then also all these smaller independents in the Bay Area that you know, are very progressive and are kind of the leaders when it comes to new products. So Byrite Grocery and Rainbow Grocery and Berkeley Bowl. And you know, those were some of our first customers. Um And I was like, Okay, maybe we can, you know, make this a real thing.

Let's order a a container load. Alright, but when you came back Home after the show, what did you do? Did you start to email all the people whose cards you got? Yeah, exactly. So You know, I

Remember meeting people at the trade show and asking them, Hey Do you want to get a cup of coffee? And You know, sitting down. I remember one guy at the trade show. He was like Oh, you got business cards. Let's go through them. And he helped me go through a stack of at least a hundred business cards and would pull that ones and be like, This is worth

following up on like you don't want to lose this card. That was huge. Like he helped me kind of figure out the lay of the land. And so Yeah. When the first container landed in July

We had a bunch of customers who had committed, so we started shipping it out directly to Grocery stores, yeah. Like H E B was w the biggest one at the time. Um Meantime.

Uh from what I understand you were laid off from your job. in April of twenty twelve. Yeah, so the start up I was working at Uh had to do layoffs. And so

I got laid off in April twenty twelve. Doesn't sound like you were that sad. Yeah. I I had to decide whether or not I wanted to Go full time into dang and really

Work on it or not? I mean I think I was probably happy that I got a little severance package. Um which help me kind of bridge the gap to start the company.

All right, let me let me try to uh I want to try to understand something. You have you you're you've laid off, right? You're now trying to get These chips into Retailers. You get an order from H E B.

A Texas chain. And I m how big how big was that order? Ten, twenty, fifty thousand dollars, do you remember? Probably ten thousand dollars. Um, so they order ten thousand dollars for the product.

How were you financing that? Because I'm assuming when you're an H E B you cannot Pa you can't hand a pack. Each bag. Now you've got a

professionalized the operation, or am I wrong? Were you hand packing them? No, so we had to professionalize and the manufacturers that we worked with were the ones to pack and ship the product to us. So we design The dang the first iteration of the dang label.

And it was still stickered. Um we we did stickers at the beginning. Yeah. But Yeah, I I th I use twenty three thousand dollars of savings to buy the first twenty foot container. In July. Were you stressed out or was it exciting? What do you

What do you member? I remember so my girlfriend at the time told me. You're always working. You don't do anything else. Mm. And

Those first few months were Yeah, we're starting to ship product and Yeah, I'm worried about Setting up the company. By myself, working out of my bedroom.

I feel like it was just a blur because I would just work. A lot. And I remember going to a class On How to start a food business.

And they were telling us about all the costs involved with slotting and trade spending and Just like All the You know, the the cost of doing starting a business and thinking to myself, Oh my God, this is gonna be way more expensive than I thought it would be. Um, and it was just me and it was really lonely. Like

when you're starting something and doing all by yourself without Anybody to kinda go through it with. It it felt like I was kind of alone on doing on my own ship. Um in the middle of the sea.

I think later that year in twenty twelve. You managed to get into some safeway stores. How did you even get on their radar? I still don't to this day. I don't Not a hundred percent, but I think they they saw us in a store.

I don't know which store. Um So they called me and they're like, Hey, you know, can you come present to our produce team And I remember going in there is a huge conference room. And

Yeah, I gave my my presentation about dang and our coconut chips and they said We love this and we want to create a premium snack destination in the produce department in all of our stores. So They quickly put us into about a thousand Safeway stores with like large displays in the produce section, which is the front of the store, ninety percent of the people walk through that area. Like that was

a game changer for us because up until then it was just, you know, small stores here and there. Yeah, small orders from H E B. But that's when That's when I called Andrew and I was like, I need help. I need help because I cannot do this by myself. Exactly. And Andrew, were you still

Uh working at your accounting job at at KPM G at that point? I was working with KPMG but uh a actually I I had quit that. Summer. of twenty twelve and then I started working with my father in his candle business.

Vincent I think. You and Dad had some behind the scenes conversations. And You effectively like Trade it like dad's like okay we're I'm just gonna give

Andrew to you.'Cause you you ca Dang needs Dang needs the help and uh It's funny'cause I think at the time I think Vincent was What he needed was he wo he needed someone That had a very different skill set.

From him. Like the opposite skill set of him as a partner. Yeah.

And he also Needed someone. that he couldn't afford to pay in the near future. That's like the perfect business partner. I'm not gonna pay you. I need

All the skill. I need the skills I don't have. All your time. And all your time. And are you in? Are you in? It's interesting'cause I remember being in Thailand having some conversations about Equity split up.

Like how are we gonna split up this company?'Cause it owned a hundred percent of it. Cause Vincent owned a hundred percent of it. And you know, I I started I think I was all in helping out for like a month or two. And then I was just like, Oh, as a brother, I'm just gonna go all in'cause it is And then we're eventually like, Okay, what will the equity split up be? And I remember being on the call in Thailand and like I think You've initially proposed a

eighty twenty split. What? Well yeah, like it it it's interesting because you could peel back like oh I'm not gonna do this for twenty percent. But I also like I had No experience in food? Like very little experience running a company. He'd done all the work. Yeah. No, and I remember hanging up the phone and I I think I cussed him out. I was like, I hate you. And then he called me back like the next day

He's like listen I I really want You to be part of the company. I think it would be really Rewarding.

For us to go through this together. I'll give you Twenty percent. And you're gonna earn it over three years. And then later that got modified even higher later. As I

I've been with the company longer and whatnot. I I actually have a very different memory of of that conversation. Yeah, please. Okay. All right. I remember talking to you and asking you what you thought was fair. I I remember you saying. I

have and and I think that was probably misconstrued. You know, like that even like one fourth of what you have, maybe one fourth of the company, like I feel like there is a miscommunication there. that led to this tension, which is why, you know, we had to kind of have multiple conversations to kind of patch things up. And I I also remember that being one of the one of the first conversations that we had That had tension.

Because we kinda grew up as brothers, you know, like We didn't really like we fight, but Later on in life we wouldn't fight as much and we were just we got along well. But this is kind of the first time we had to be a little bit more

Combative, I would say. And I remember being very awkward. So you finally agree. Um a split. Andrew, you join.

Full time. And now you've gotta fulfill this big order from safely I think it was a fifty thousand dollar order. Is that is that right? Yeah. It was fifty thousand dollars of coconut chips going to their thousand or thousand stores. But really, that's just the beginning of a long journey because you want them to keep ordering, which means you've got to sell the coconut chips.

And you guys I imagine don't don't have any marketing budget. How are you gonna get people to even Be aware of of this product and try them. So at the time this is twenty thirteen and these are the early days of Instagram.

And my phone started blowing up and I was like, Why are all these people texting me? They're like, Check your Instagram, check your check your Instagram. Um so Courtney Kardashian had found our product at an airport'cause we were selling at a few airport stores. And Put a post of it on her Instagram with the caption Flight Sack. And our

Website traffic just spiked. And that's when I realized wow, like Social media is becoming a big marketing tool, right? And this is the power of it. It's funny'cause we right the week before we were in the New York Times. So I had sent samples to a bunch of different food editors.

And then I got a call. from Florence Fabricant who does the front burner section and she was like, Hey, I think I wanna you know feature your coconut chips. Florence Fabricat. Yeah. She's the famous Yeah, wow. Uh I'm more impressed with that than Courtney Kardashian myself. I was too. And I remember, you know after that I was like, Oh, this is pretty cool and I remember looking at our website traffic and it was like up a little bit.

But then after the Courtney Kardashian post, our website traffic spiked like a hundred times. And that was just that was just pure luck that Courtney Kardashian put that on Instagram. That was luck that you know we happen to be selling at the right time in the right place, which is at an airport near her. But but still. I mean

You're in safeways, and probably most of those people in safeway. had not seen Courtney Kardashians. Instagram post. How are you gonna create awareness among those shoppers.'Cause you needed them to continue ordering your your product, right? You wanted them to sell.

So how did you What was the plan? Yeah, so How do you get attention? Right. When you're in the store. You have

Less than a second to grab someone's attention. I I think the best way to do that is to create A good package. And there's a saying that your package is your product. Sell in the bag, it's the bag itself. 'Cause that has to do so many things, it has to educate someone on what's inside, what to expect, what the nutritionals are.

You know, attributes like keto paleo. And Yeah, for from the beginning I knew that we had to Capture people's attention with the name Dang. Because

Yeah. You know, the logo, we always put that front and center in a very big font. But then also visually we had to illustrate what to expect in the bag without actually putting a window. So I remember buying coconuts in Thailand when we were there.

And they were cheap. They were like a d a dollar for like five of them. Yeah, setting up a photo studio and taking pictures of coconut chips spilling out of the coconut. So you knew that it was something, you know, a natural product that came actually from the coconut itself. Yeah.

to illustrate that it was a natural product without saying the word natural on it. So we used all these earthy tones like tan and green and brown. Basically things you would find on a coconut tree. So twenty thirteen, it just sounds like You need a lot of help. And your brother comes in and And he is

How do you I mean what's the i the idea, Vincent, you're gonna be the CEO And Andrew, you're gonna be the operations guy? Was that sort of how you you divided? Responsibility. Yeah, I think I think from the beginning it was Vincent was really like the front facing Visionary.

Handling sales and marketing and product development. I was handling ops, finance and accounting. And it's still has held To that to this day. Our company was a mess at the time.

I don't have a finance background or an operations background. So You know, our books were a mess and our products were not shipped in a very efficient way. So we had a lot of things that needed Attention.

All right, but you had one product line. And And you cannot build a company on coconut chips alone. Right. And you knew that. You you knew that that was not gonna be possible. You had to You had to expand beyond that. So

What was the next product you were gonna Put out into the world. Yeah, we slowly built out the line of coconut chips because people were telling us they want it with coconut sugar or they want it without sugar at all. So we actually had to create a facility to make An unsweetened coconut chip. But then I was on a trip to Japan and I saw

These onion chips. in the supermarket and I was like, Oh, this is really cool. It tastes like caramelized onions, which is Delicious. They were just what? They were like fried. Piece of onion. Yeah, so us using a technology called vacuum frying, which didn't you know, it takes out all the atmospheric pressure so that you it doesn't collapse when you fry it.

And it it you can spin out most of the oil. Okay. So it's like light, flaky, crispy. Like onion petal. Oh, so it wasn't it wasn't a ring, it was like a petal. Exactly. And I remember we tested it and people loved it.

Yeah, it and it crunches like a Like a chip. And it was like light. It wasn't too oily. Uh and it's just onion. That's it. Just onion and salt. Just onion and salt. And I was thinking I remember thinking to myself, Oh, we can go after funyans.

Yeah. What happened was that at the um Like we were going around the trade shows that these were vacuum fried onion chips, they were pretty clean. And uh when people tried them at The trade shows, um

People love them. And I remember I remember one of our industry friends tried it and he like looked up in the air. He was like Oh Dang they did it again. Like this is so good. These were gonna be like organic funions. Ex Exactly. Funions aren't really onion. They're just puffed corn, flavored like onions. We were so excited about that, uh like they were getting so much positive feedback from the community just as we did with our coconut chips. We're like, Okay, this is gonna be a winner. This was gonna be the big thing.

So It failed miserably. When we come back in just a moment. Now Andrew and Vincent learn the hard way that the best snack foods have to be addictive. And maybe

They shouldn't give you onion bread. Stay with us, I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This. Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's several years into dang foods, and Vincent and his brother Andrew think they have the best snack idea since funyuns. a vacuum fried onion petal chip.

But despite some dang good initial feedback from people in the industry, Customers, it turned out. didn't quite agree. They would eat a few bites, but they would just kinda let it sit. I think.

and they couldn't finish it. And when you don't have a snack that you can finish, then you don't go back and buy it again. But why was it too much like Sounds really light and Flavorful? What what was the feedback you were getting?

One thing that we didn't anticipate was that people would be Worr about onion breath. About getting onion on their breasts. And they didn't want to walk around smelling like Like that you just eat onion.

It's something that nobody ever told us when we were testing it out. People don't snack on onions. How long did it take you to discover that this was a failure? I think it's only a month or two, probably. It's supermarkets don't give you a lot of time if you're not selling well. You weren't thinking, Oh, just give it time. People have to come around to it. You were thinking this is a failure.

Six weeks in, we gotta pull it. I have to say that there's other considerations, like the biggest driver was that it wasn't flying off the shelf. I think from the beginning, guy, there was Margin concerns. Like we were looking at I mean, there were some tariffs associated with this onion from Vietnam

Um, I think when we first launched, I think we were looking at something like twenty percent margins and we're like, listen We can do this because if this is gonna get as big as funyans, like when we sell up to ten million and we get to scale to the next level, those margins will hit thirty and then they'll hit forty and everything that's gonna work itself out if the velocity comes. Mm-hmm. The velocity didn't didn't come. The velocity didn't come at all. Right. There were yellow flags in the process, maybe even red flags in the processes of launching this.

I think there was so much pressure from the market. And from from the industry to be like, Hey, we need to launch something new and it needs to be dang good. That like that like the pressure. I think

Over road those yellow Flags in the process. Yeah. Did you take a financial hit? Oh yeah. I think it was about

All in all. I don't know. Two million dollars? Wow. That's hard.

We had just gotten uh venture funded. And so uh uh for about four million dollars and about One and a half to two of the million dollars went to the onion chips. It didn't work.

It didn't work. So let me let me ask you about venture funding, because the first three years it was bootstrapped. And at a certain point you either Many companies, especially in the food business. It's very rare.

to to be able to continue to do it on your own. Some have done. Cliff Bar is a good example. But m many of them either sell to a bigger multinational or go for outside funding. In order to scale.

Uh and you guys. Sounds like you had to get outside funding if you wanted to. To scale. We weren't paying ourselves for the first three years. So we had to get outside funding to make a living.

you know, up until then we put every penny of profit back into the company because we wanted it to grow because we believed it would be worth something someday. But after three years of that, we're like, it's too risky to keep going this way. Yeah, when when investors'cause I'm thinking if if you came to me then and you said, Hey We we're looking for capital, I'd say well. What are you? I mean

Coconut chips alone. I'm not sure. Did you start to think about your company differently? Did you start to say you know what? We are a snack food brand, or did you say? We are an

Asian American snack food brand. How did you begin to think about what You won't. what you wanted your story to be. Yeah, I think It was an evolution, so

We started out with, hey, we're a better for you snack company that takes, you know, whole foods that you can identify and turns them into snacks that you can eat. But then looking at it later on, we were like there's nothing Any number of snack companies.

And so later on we realized, okay, how do we make it different? And like We had to look at ourself and say, How are we different than everybody else out there? And one thing that we always relied on was You know, Asian flavors and ingredients. And so we changed that over time to an Asian American snack company.

Mm-hmm. Bringing Ingredients and flavors from Asia in forms that Americans understand, like chips. And later on bars. And and when you went to raise money, were the investors saying You're gonna have to become something bigger than just coconut chips. You're gonna have to have lots of product lines.

And ultimately Coconut chips may not even be The thing that Is your primary source of revenue. I think

We heard actually the opposite also, which was Why don't you just focus on coconut chips and make that as big as coconut water? So After we got an investment, we tried to follow that model of hiring a big field sales team to go into stores and we thought that that was going to

Bring us to this next level of growth with Cocon chips and the onion chips. But it. Didn't work out. Like we didn't grow. So

It's interesting'cause you had this money to hire Sales people. But why w what was the disconnect? Why weren't they effective? I think you know, hiring a field team First off

People are expensive, right? So each person maybe seventy thousand dollars, right, in salary. And That's in Yeah, the that payroll, you have to basically sell half a million in order to get that seventy K of contribution. That pays off that person's salary.

So You know, going into store by store and selling Displays in like How many of those do you need to get a half a million of revenue? It's a lot.

I I also think it's uh like I think that works well with the people I talk to in the industry. on a high margin high velocity item. I think Our item was relatively moderate to high margin and velocity.

But then a lot more competition. started coming in twenty sixteen onwards with coconut chips. So you've got Some capital. One of the

one of your investors and you raise about four million dollars and and one of your investors is a Bigger food brand. Um This is interesting to me because I think They actually helped you get even wider distribution, which you need to succeed. You have to be everywhere to actually scale a company.

Was that investment you got? That was that the the the catalyst that helped you get? Even more distribution. So they did a couple of things. First, they taught us how to think like them. And as a big stack company

You know, they're interested in what they call stomach share. Which is literally getting more of a share of America's stomachs. And to us, you know, kind of running this small stack company, we never really thought in terms like that, but then, you know, after a while it kinda just started to sink in, like, Oh yeah, we need to Who's our cohort? Like who's actually buying dang? We've never really

had good information and data about our consumer before, but they came to us with loads of data saying, Hey, your consumer is, you know, highly educated. Tends to be female, lives on the coast, you know, has pretty decent household income. Oh, and by the way, you index really high with Asian Americans. Right. But then they also helped us get into Some new distribution channels that we had never considered before like the convenience store.

You guys The onion chips didn't work out, but you tried other things with coconut chips, right? You you did like A bunch of different flavors. Like bacon and Chili Lime and Dark Chocolate Milk Chocolate. Dark chocolate coated.

I think today you've got three types of coconut chips. Yeah. Salted and uh The original recipe which is has some sugar and then unsweetened. And unsweetened. Okay. So what happened? Those ones the other ones just didn't take off? Yeah, I mean We tried a lot of different things and

At the end of the day, we kind of learned that People kinda want a less adulterated coconut. Uh. Kinda similar with coconut water. Like they don't want flavored coconut water, they just want coconut water. So That's what we have today. tried so many things that failed, but we had to do that in order to figure it out.

Um one of the things'cause it sounds like I mean you were trying out a bunch of things. I mean you were experimenting and you were failing and you were experimenting and you were failing. Until you actually hit God on a hit you you land on on a hit, which I think is one of your These products say which are the those rice chips.

Yeah, it's the the Thai Rice trackers. We um I've got the airport in Bangkok. And We saw a lot of

Specifically like Chinese tourists walking out. Like Ten different At the time there are the cartons of these

Little rice. Crackers. Yeah. And if you looked at the what they were buying, they were buying like um very Flavors that were were good for their market, like crab, curry.

And We thought that it could be an opportunity, so we Contact the supplier. We had a lot of credibility in going to other suppliers in Thailand and having a conversation with them about what it would be like. to reintroduce a similar product in America. Um it's it's basically

Sticky rice. Which is a a type of rice. Um S this is amazing. Steamed and then soaked in watermelon juice. And then

Puffed dried. So it's like a crispy Am I describing it correctly, more or less? Yeah, and and that's the way that It's cooked traditionally as a As a snack like on the streets in Thailand and like markets.

It's called Katan. And um They traditionally. have to use watermelon juice'cause they they need to make it sticky. Stickier, like the sticky rice, they have to make it stickier. So they need like a slightly s you know, sticky, sweet solution. And watermelon juice has just the right amount of stickiness. Um

To create these disks. So um You now have a bunch of flavors. I think Sriracha is your Is the biggest selling one out of those, right? Yeah. Um so that's that was a hit.

Right. And and was it clear right away that that was a hit or or or was it Do it take a some time. They were like how like We got to have more evidence of proof of concept before launching How did you change your

Your process to Mm make sure that a new product would would work. I mean, you you saw people buying it, but what did you do? I mean you How did you test it before you Decided to go all in.

So We have the family that was helping us with coconut chips. We Called them and were like Hey. This is a picture of this package that we bought at the airport. Can you go

Find out who makes it and go talk to them. And they Set it all up for us. So They met with the the owner.

And told them who we were. And he shared with us how much that they sold in the airport, which was ten thousand boxes a day. Just crazy. Yeah.

And you know, we told them, Hey, like we want to bring your product to the US and, you know, put it under the dang brand and, you know, help work with you on seasonings and He loved it. And then For testing. We did a lot more consumer testing with that one. Today you have You're you're in the energy bars space, too.

Which is a tough m we've done energy bars on the show. We've done R X bar, we've done We've done Cliff Bar. Uh it's a really crowded space. Tell me about about the thinking behind energy bars. Why did you get into that space?

The people that were buying our unsweetened coconut chip Which is just made from coconut and salt. We're telling us They need more snacks like this because it's perfect for their keto diet. And I looked at the bar space and I was like, Nobody's doing a keto bar, why not? And you know We have all this credibility from coconut chips, you know, it's high fat, low carb.

So we developed a line of Keto bars. Using cocoa butter and Asian ingredients like matcha. We're like, All right, we're gonna put our our brand spin on it by Introducing matcha to that category and other Asian flavors. And Yeah, we started showing it to like

Yeah, Whole Foods Bar buyer and they were like, All right, yeah, let's let's try it out. Let's bring it in. So we went national Until January twenty nineteen. At Whole Foods. And they're all they all have some kind of Asian Influence. Um there's lemon matcha.

As you mentioned, um toasted coconut, obviously. The almond cookie has one of those almond cookies that You sometimes get in Chinese restaurants, right? Yeah. Uh And then there's crazy rich chocolate. Yeah, which

We couldn't figure out how to make chocolate Asian, but this was right after Crazy Rich Asians came out. And Andrew had this idea of like why don't we just call it Crazy Rich Chocolate because it's rich. So this bar does pretty well. I think by the end of twenty nineteen. apparently is one of the best selling energy bars in Whole Foods. We were the best selling bar at Whole Foods in twenty nineteen.

In terms of like unit velocity, so units sold at per store per week. And we were just riding high because We we launched this new thing and it finally we finally got something that like worked really well. Alright, so this is

Great, you're doing well. really beginning to grow. Then COVID hits. twenty twenty. And um

energy bars are real you know, connected to to gyms and working out. Did you start to see your sales take a hit? Yeah. Pretty drastic. I think the data was about

Fifty percent. drop in bar category sales pre and post COVID. And the thing was that Dang bars was supposed to be like The biggest growth driver for our brand. In twenty twenty. Like it was like our shining star. It was like

supposed to be the driver for most of our growth. But became the driver of our Decline. Uh for that year. what happened to the company? Did you guys have to

Two layoffs. Yeah, so I I I think it was also we were in a lot of um with our coconut chips and our rice chips, we were in a lot of corporate accounts. Yeah. Like we have this pretty f fanatical backing at like Google and Facebook and a lot of those tech companies. Oh right. Oh you these were snacks available at Google. Snacks available for f you know, for free at those companies. And and because of stayed home, they those sales dropped about ninety percent pre and post Covid. And even now they're not fulbacted. So what happens in the

in our industry, probably in a lot of other industries is you know, you start to have sales declines We couldn't raise money. our burn rate was like Like four hundred thousand dollars per month in the beginning. And uh we had to Get the positive.

So how long did it take you before You guys were able to Maybe breathe a slight sigh of relief that You're gonna be okay. Earlier this year

We got to break even. I've been we've been like checking the number like we should. The first thing we do like the end of it is just check. Check a profitability seeing where we're at. We we got to break even. Um after being from a four hundred K burn rate. And

Um That's a huge sigh of relief. For us because it's not like hey, like the company isn't gonna go under in a couple of months if we don't do anything about it. Like we've Built. A bunch of runway from that.

That was a big accomplishment. I ha I would say that We haven't Exhaled. Because Right after that.

We had these supply chain issues. Whereby Our ocean freight containers. have been delayed. About seven weeks on average.

Wow. Still to this day. To this day. To this day. You guys are now Well, I think I think you're now in in over ten thousand stores.

Uh across the US. Is that is that about right? Yeah, roughly. Um And I I've noticed that the product everywhere every time I go to a big grocery store or small one.

So you've got a brand out there. It's been a tough Pandemic period for you for a variety of reasons. But she came out of it. and battered and bruised, but you came out of it. And you're still

Fighting your way out of it. How are you feeling about the next? I I'm a little bit more cautious. I've always been more cautious. I'm always like just not just thinking about those containers coming in and what that's impacting our

Profitability. Um I think it's just been hard because we've been through so much, especially in the last couple of years. That I think I do feel a little bit battered. Yeah. But I do believe in what we've built and what we stand for.

What about the relationship between the two of you? Because I understand That there was a point where the both of you had to go Talk to Not had to, but but chose to to talk to a therapist together, or maybe separately, I'm not sure.

'cause there was some tension between the two of you. Uh what So what was the tension? I Think it kinda stemmed from me. I

Um Our parents had a pretty hard breakup. Yeah. And I didn't really process any of that until I started going to therapy.

And it's interesting because I think a lot of people I mean, I've heard your podcast, a lot of there's people that Talk about like how like in a partner in a co founder relationship, it's important to get a coach. I think for my specific situation with Vincent, like it was important for me to Because what would happen was that a lot of

Tension would come up. with my brother, like I remember getting really, really angry at him. When he wasn't being defensive. With me like Uh

Uh against like a sales broker that we were working with. And I remember getting really, really, really angry at him. And It definitely caused rifts in our relationship.

Yeah. I I think And it's funny, I'm the older brother, but Andrew's always kinda been a protector. And for that I'm very, very grateful, but I also feel like, you know Some of that. Yeah, typically as an older brother, like

That could be a role for an older brother. And um, if I w I wasn't able to do that for him, like at a time where he needed it, right. And for me You know, whenever we had These conflicts. And you know, Andrew would get upset. I I like closed up. I I felt like I couldn't

And it wasn't. I just didn't feel safe. Mm. And so one of those things that we had to work on was how do we manage conflict and then how do we both feel safe Uh in order to

To resolve it and to move forward. You know, Vincent, we don't really talk about this, but like I feel like we're closer I feel like we're closer now than we've ever been before. I agree with that. I feel like we've gone through a lot together. Like it's kinda like we gone through the and and

And like we we mentioned earlier that like we were very co very cooperative and I think there was just all this stuff that wasn't processed. And then when when you get into a startup with someone as their partner, you're like Literally spending forty, fifty, sixty hours together. Um And

It almost forced us to untangle this stuff more intensely. And um I think we've come through on the other side and I think like our Friendship and our bond has never been stronger. This is a complicated Moment to ask this question.

But you know the question coming. How much of of where you are today Do you think it has to do with With luck. How much would you attribute to just

The grind. of what you uh and the work you put in. I would say a ton of our early success was attributed to luck. For example

The timing of coconut chips. If we had waited another year to launch coconut chips, it would have been too late. And if we had gone earlier, it would have been too early. So we launched right at the right year. Um and then getting on the radar of retailers and influencers like we didn't know that was gonna happen, that would that

That was lucky. Um, also launching at a time where coconut was On trend, like That was lucky. But more recently, you know, we have more to lose if we make mistakes. So we have to put forth the effort to ensure that we're successful. So we test products many times before putting them out in the world. Because you only have one chance to earn a customer. They don't give you a second chance.

Andrew. Yeah, my response would be in line with that. I'd say seventy thirty Luck to effort. In the early years. And more recently it's been seventy, thirty

Effort. To luck. And would you like to reverse that again? Yeah, in the last very pay such good attention, yes. But she you'll you'll take the luck. You'll take the luck when it comes. Yeah. Oh, we'll take the luck when it comes.

That's Andrew and Vincent Kiti Ratchegan, brothers and co-founders of Bang Foods. By the way, influencers aren't always so influential. Back in 2019, the brothers released a seaweed-flavored rice chip. Within weeks, the unofficial mayor of Twitter herself, Chrissy Teegan, posted a phone those chips with her personal endorsement. The Kiti Ratchegan brothers couldn't believe their luck.

One of the biggest influencers out there love them. And yet Even Chrissy Teegan's love wasn't enough. The Seaweed chips never took off and were discontinued, but it's all part of Dang's try lots of things out and fail fast strategy. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please do follow us on your podcast app so you always have the latest episode downloaded. If you want to contact us, our email address is hibt at npr.org.

If you want to follow us on Twitter, our account is at HowIBilt This and mine is at GuyRaz. Our Instagram account is at HowIBilt This NPR and mine is at guy.ros. This episode was produced by Liz Metzger with music composed by Ramteen Arablui. It was edit by Casey Herman with research help from Claire Murashima. Our production staff also includes Neva Grant, Vera Safari, JC Howard, Julia Carney, Carrie Thomson, Elaine Coates, and Harrison B. J Choi.

Our intern is Margaret Sarino. Jeff Rogers is our executive producer. I'm Guy Raz and you've been listening. how I built this. This

is NPR.

What you see above is a preview of the first minutes. One unlock costs 3 credits and covers this episode forever: full segment and word-level timestamps on this page, plus .txt, .srt, .vtt and word-level JSON downloads, as many times as you like.