Live Episode! Angie's BOOMCHICKAPOP: Angie & Dan Bastian (2019)

This message comes from NPR sponsor Edward Jones. Life is a series of moments. Make the most of them with an Edward Jones financial advisor. Whether you're planning the trip of a lifetime, retirement, or just need some everyday advice. Life is for living. Let's partner for all of it. Lear more at EdwardJones.com Hey everyone, so some great news because starting April first, we're gonna be releasing not one, but two episodes of How I Built This every single week. But in order to prepare for that, we've got a lot of work to do to Get those episodes out to you. So in the meantime, we're gonna run a few repeats, including this one that was recorded in the summer of 2019. The team and I traveled to St. Paul, Minnesota to do a live show with the founders of Angie's Boom Chick-a-Pop. We uh all ate a ton of popcorn that night. There were actually bags of their snacks everywhere, and

As you'll hear, we also had an incredible time with them on stage. It's a really fun and amazing story. So Enjoy. You went to a bunch of banks. And What did they say? Were they were they eager to lend you the money?

No. You went to bank after bank and they just said what you're doing. open to discussing than others and you know, we eventually uh found a partner uh that worked with us and I lent us the money. And what did you have to well what kind of collateral did you have to buy?

Personal guarantees. Personal guarantees. Yeah. Which was our home. Yeah. Future earnings. Everything but the minivan. Yeah.

Yeah. Drama NPR is how I built this. show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements. They built. I'm Guy Roz, and on the show today, how Angie and Dan Bastian went from popping kettle corn in their freezing Minnesota driveway.

To building an international snack brand worth hundreds of millions of dollars. So there's a piece of career advice that I've always struggled with because it Feels a little hollow. And the advice is to follow your passion. For starters, not everyone has an obvious passion. And then not all passions are easily translated into sustainable careers.

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

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

The idea behind buying a kettlecorn kit was Pretty simple. They needed a way to ear extra money to save for their kids' college funds. And popping and selling kettle corn? Seemed like a reasonable way to do it. So in two thousand one After Dan literally saw an internet ad for kettle corn equipment,

He convinced Angie They should go for it. They could launch it out of their garage in Mancato, Minnesota, and then, you know, sell the popcorn at Little League Games or in parking lots. And that was how Angie's Kettle Corn was born. It would be the beginning of a grueling grind.

The long hours, the freezing cold days, the crushing debt. and the stress on their marriage and finances. But sixteen years after that kettle kit arrived, Angie's boom chicken pop sold to a huge food conglomerate for a quarter of a billion dollars. It is like many of the stories in the show.

Seemingly improbable. Two people. with no business experience, no connections, no real passion for popcorn, still managed to build an incredible company. And a few weeks ago, Dan and Angie told me how they did it. in front of a live audience at the Ordway Concert Hall.

St. Paul, Minnesota. Those are our rowdy friends. These are your people. These are our people. So uh welcome. Thank you for being here. Angie, I want to start with you, um, and then we'll obviously get to when when the two of you met. Um You grew up

in Indiana. You grew up I think mainly on a farm. Yeah. Um in a in a Mennonite community. Can you Tell us a little bit about your childhood and and your upbringing. Sure. Um well my parents were very young. They were eighteen and nineteen when they were married, and nineteen and twenty Uh when I came along and they lived in a

trailer in the back of my grandparents' uh yard in the on the farm. And uh my parents met at Mennonite High School. And and so growing up you went to the Mennonite church and you were really part of them and I Community. I was culturally, religiously, socially, all men and I and just for people who aren't familiar with

with Mennonite Culture. What what does that mean? I mean I uh obviously modesty, right? And so like Did you I don't know, watch T V and go to movies and do all the do all those things as a kid? I got to go to a movie when I my first movie was The Sound of Music. Yeah. Little risky. And I married a Catholic. Ha ha

A little different upbringing. Uh It was it was very sequestered, it was very protected, I was very loved and cared for and very simple, and I didn't know I was an oddball until I you know until I was twenty eight. And and um So you grew up in Goshen, Indiana. Yes. Um

Dan, you grew up in in Mancato, right? I mean that's where that's where you're from. So I grew up in Manquito, uh third of four boys. It was kinda chaotic at times in our household, I'd say. Fun in a good way, had an loving parents. Uh had an incredible experience growing up, um very competitive.

All of us boys played sports, so uh a few heads were thrown through the wall. Uh there's a picture over that hole. And and and were you were I mean Tell me a little bit about About your school like were you a good student in school? I love school. Yeah. I I just Are you gonna ask me that question? I did, I loved school. And um but

I grew up in a environment that didn't necessarily encourage me to go to college. And um you know it wasn't until my My aunt Christine in Colorado Springs said to me when I was nineteen like why aren't you in college? and I I it was the first time anybody in my family said That they thought I had some potential them to think that I had some potential. Well I didn't know what. I didn't know what. You know, I I just said, Oh my gosh, you know you think I could go to college? And she said, Of course, you should go to college and I enroll well I

I took a chemistry course that summer just to prove to myself that I could do it and I got a B, so I was like, okay, I think I can do this. So I'm going to college. And T and Tim, how about you? I mean I mean were you Would the school come easy to you? Uh no. I mean it was hard.

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

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

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

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

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

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

So I don't know. I don't I was not eating well not to I fainted in the elevator and fell on my face and broke my jaw. So I was wired shut and my friend Raymond, who was the social worker at the hospital, was a good friend of his uncle's and he said, let's go over and hang out at Roger's house. So we went over to Roger's house, we hung out, and my w jaw was wired shut and Dan said immediately, Oh, you broke your jaw. I broke my jaw uh in college. So when I was in college I was playing baseball and I got hit by a line drive. And

So Angie I could relate to her like when she walked when I walked into the kitchen, her jaw was wired shut. And it's like I know what she's going through, she's blending food, she's Like doing all that kind of thing. So you bond over this right away. There's an intense job broken. So we there was a group of people that lived in Gallup that just would hang out together, you know. It's Gallup is a Very difficult place. And a lot of people come in and work in the schools and the hospitals and there was a group of us that were there doing that and we would just go hang out and do happy hour every Friday night and we

Got to know each other that way. So you start hanging out, eventually you guys bec become a couple and I think within like two years of meeting you got married, right? We got married. We had w a destination wedding in Taos, New Mexico, where we just kind of had all a small wedding but had friends and family come and Watch us get married. I think a year later your daughter's born, ninety five. You guys moved to Santa Fe. Right. Yes. Um for a a a brief period and then

You eventually moved to Florida. you're a young couple and you've got a child and Two kids. Two kids at that point. Oh, your son is born. Son is born in Santa Fe. Why did you move to Florida? We just kind of said, Hey, you know, maybe it's time to get a little closer to grandma's and grandpa's your family was in my family was in Sarasota Florida, yeah. So you move there, you start working for a clinic

A clinic. Coastal recovery center, which is a malhealth clinic. And Dan, what did you do in Florida? So I stayed home with the kids, um, got to um Spend Incredible uh time with them. And I also at the same time Yeah, what do you mean by that? I mean because you're

You're the lead parent, right? You are at home and and and she's and she's Working at one day a week I'd go work at this golf course um and Angel's mom would take care of Annika and Trip. What would you do at the golf course? I just slept bags and carts and I was just a car guy. Yeah. Um Uh which I was good at, I guess. And you got free golf. And I got free golf. But I started this golf business where I'd set up tournaments for corporations. Uh I I I didn't get real far with it, but I only had one or two turnups, I think. But it was it was just kind of a good experience of Because Ange and I had started thinking about, you know, can we do something together? Is there an opportunity to do something together? And so we had some other ideas floating through our heads and but you would basically kinda start to think about hey, you know

What what could a a business be like? What could it look like? Into your mind. Yeah, I got a lot going through my mind, guys. So I I I I I don't I don't know if I was really like focused on anything specifically other than You know, Angie and I wanted to do something together. We didn't really know what it was. We were thinking food at the time. Not popcorn, but like food.

restaurant, co op, cafe type thing, um where we could do it together and we could Go after it. I think both Dan and I has the have this sort of restlessness about ourselves. Like we and and like when one adventure doesn't work, we're on to the next adventure. Like let's go back to Minnesota. Let's go to Minnesota. I I loved Minnesota. And you guys decide let's go to Mankato. You want it to be near your family?

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

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

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

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

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

How can I make money from a sign business? Like what were you what were your search parameters? You know, I don't know. U A site that said make thousands of dollars Every weekend or day. Popping kettle car.

Which is like A total scam. How many scams you seem like thousands of dollars selling kettle corn and you thought Eureka? Eureka, Eka, Eureka. Well,$10,000 into it, we realized uh this is a potential scam, right? No, but I mean I mean You s you see this and you think Yeah, well

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

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

We called him and we bought it on a credit card like everyone else. Uh we bought a kettle. A tent. You know if you go to a fair one of those outdoor kettles and all the equipment, a table, it it probably Wasn't worth

eight or ten thousand, but we it was already a pre packaged And you and and basically instructions on on you know the proportions of sugar, salt and No it didn't have that. No but it was this to be fair, it was this couple's Uh out of Gig Harbor, Washington's their own entrepreneur ship. Sort of like they were building these kettles and these packages to sell to kettle corn vendors. Right. Uh and they were making a business out of it. What does a kettle look like?

Is it yeah, is like it's like I don't know, how many quartz is it? Like a huge Yeah, it's it's if you go to fairs, you see people screaming. It was a handstrom. And you plug it into electricity? No, no, open flame. It was like five hundred degrees. Right. Yeah. So do you remember like unpacking this stuff and like looking at each other and saying, Let's make kettle corn. That's exactly what we did. We did. I know this seems far fetched, but it worked. It really worked.

Wait, no, so you unpacked the so the stuff arrives. A semi truck pulled up and couldn't go down our alley. Our alley was too small. So it pulled up on the street outside and we had to haul these things up the alley to our little Like garage that was in the alley. The couple who had sold us the equipment. Trying to figure out how this worked. So it was just it was a little chaotic. And then we just like tweak the recipe. It was really good. It was great. And it's basically a a kit.

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

The date that we were gonna do it and Dan was like, Well, okay, November twenty first. Let's see what happens. And fortunately it was a beautiful fall day and um It took us an hour to set up and we sold three hundred dollars of popcorn. Dan, I mean your family is in Mancato, your I guess your brothers were maybe around your parents like when you said and they said, Hey, um What do you do in this weekend like I'm gonna sell kettle corn um in front of this.

Supermarket under a tenth. That's weird. Yeah. Um Yeah.

I mean I'm just curious. I had we had experience I we didn't get into this, but there were a couple kind of crazy ideas that we had experiment with before. Uh like a network marketing gig. And so my family was probably like here's Dan going again. Like here's another just hairbrained idea. Yeah. Інофас а тінь і вас мова. You know, we're trying to Should I just

We were spinning our wheels. We couldn't figure out what we wanted to do and this was a way to get started. But ten thousand dollars, I have to imagine investing that kind of money. Then was probably a kind of a big deal. Well, Zero percent credit cards. Yeah, but still you gotta pay it back.

Yeah, but we used another credit card to pay off that credit card. There's a lot of credit cards going around at it at that time. And so you start selling the popcorn the first time you you you set up a tent, you sell three hundred dollars for the popcorn and and are you bagging it in like Ziploc bags and just No, twists. Twist tie bags. Okay. Scooping it and selling it and popcorn, right, is like an amazing like the

The difference in what you pay for the kernels and what you can sell the popcorn for, right, is it's a nice margin. People told us no one would pay three dollars or five dollars for a bag of popcorn or kettle corn or whatever, but They did. They did. Because it's really good. So three hundred bucks, you come home. What's the next step? Let's do this again. Like I mean, it felt

I don't know. It felt exhilarating a little bit, you know, that w like we're in business now. Like we're actually doing this. Yeah. But you were still teaching, you were still doing your would you see your students like uh on the weekends, or would you see, you know, folks from the hospital? Yes. And they would look at me like what are you doing? Yeah. Right. I would have like when I was in the clinic in the afternoon, I saw patients, I was a nurse practitioner, so I was writing prescriptions and making referrals and and then I'd run home and I'd change into my kettle corn clothes and go to the um go to the local baseball game or uh with Dan or whatever and we'd Make kettle corn and sometimes my clinic patients would be at the amateur baseball games and they would come up to the table and look confused. Yeah.

Because you were just writing a prescription, now you're selling on Kettle Corn. Yes, exactly. And my message was you can always be more than one thing in life. You can. You can. All right. So you've got a license, you got a tent, you got a kettle. And what were you calling the company at that point?

Cattle corn cafe. Kettle corn c Got it. So two thousand two, you take the winter off, because you can't really sell it outside. We did pop in January in the snow. Because there was a girls' basketball tournament at Minnesota State University and they didn't have any concessions and so we said here's our opportunity. And you have to do it outdoors, right? So we put the tent outside the garage and it was snowing and we just put the sides up and we'd pop it outside and deliver it over to the College.

I think it was That summer Of two thousand two. uh where you basically started to sell kettle corn at the Minnesota Vikings Training camp.

Right. So wh how did that happen? Did you just like go there and set up sh you asked them, I'm assuming, if you could go and set up a tent? Or no, you didn't ask me. No, no, we asked, we asked. We're Midwesterners. And when you a And when you asked, would they say yeah you have to pay us uh you know a certain amount of money if you want to set up uh outside here or it was With the with the Vikings I had a a former college classmate of mine that was uh assistant

athletic director at the college at Minnesota State University. And he um Open the door for us to set up our tent. um at at the training camp and and I think There may have been a fear commission on that, but we thought I mean that was a huge opportunity for us to make make some extra money. Correct. So you start um

uh selling popcorn there and I guess one of you has this idea. Let's um Let's send the players a team. Popcorn Yeah, right. Like let's leverage this opportunity. Uh because Dan

Like most Minnesotans um are huge Minnesota Vikings fans. But I didn't understand it yet'cause I had just moved here. And he was like Minnesota Vikings, everything all about it. And and you know, it was at the time of Randy Moss and Dante Culpeper and you know that it like all that that era and and he was just like wouldn't it be fun if the players ate our kettle corn and we were like well let's figure it out let's figure out how to make it. So what did you do? You you just made tons of bags of kettle corn just to We made a few phone calls just to see if we could give it to them. Yeah and we waited and we waited and Nobody call back? No we got a phone call back and they said so we hear that you have some kettle corn that you want to give the players. We'll take it as long as it's free. So we were like

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

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

They they said preferred. You know It costs more for offici the word official. It costs more for official. Oh wow. But we said

We're gonna be official. Alright, so you are Starting to sell in front of the side. football season. You're going there every weekend.

to in front of the stadium tailgators Not inside the stadium, right? Just in front. And and were you I mean, were you selling a lot of catch? Were you doing well? Yeah, we were selling I mean Every Sunday we get up at like five A.

take our equipment up and we'd be up and ready to go by nine a. They had a party on the plaza on Kirby Pucket Drive in front of the Metrodome and uh there'd be a band. It didn't matter if it w there was a blizzard or if it was ten degrees or zero degrees, the the party was still on. And we popped cattle corn. No, we had friends come and help us. Volunteer friends. A lot of them are in this uh audience right now. And

Mm-hmm. And um I have to assume I mean your costs Weren't that high, right? It's salt, sugar. Some oil and Corn, right?

Yes. Corn kernels. Yeah. So we're but so you were probably making some money or but not too much money, like a little bit of money, or were you Actually was it were you starting to be able to save for this college fund? Not really.

It all went back in the business. We bought a trailer. We bought more equipment. We bought I don't know. A heater for the You know, I don't it was just everything seemed to go back into the business.

So W was this a kind of a turning point where you start to get attention? Because I think within a year or so a local supermarket chain in Minnesota approached you and said, Hey You know, do do you guys want to sell your popcorn Here at our stores. Is that is that how it happened?

Well yeah, so we started after a couple years of being this outdoor event company. we start realizing like this is not something we want to do for the rest of our lives. I mean we was it was any It was an opportunity to reach people, but it We thought you know, is there another way to get our kettle corn into people's hands, our mouths. It was cold. Right, it was c yeah, exactly. And so when we we we started in two thousand three, two years into it, I I quit teaching um

And I started focusing on the business. And she was continuing to to work. full time supporting the family as well as helping in the business and We met with a local grocery chain London Byrleys and Um

They said More or less. Get your act together and come back and talk to us. Get nutritional panel, get packaging. You know, twist ties don't work in grocery stores. So what did you do? How did you How did you start that? We'll get our act together and will you see us again.

And um It took us six months. We found a small kitchen. Um we bought some equipment, we moved the operation indoors. Um and got that. that kitchen licensed.

And we came back in six months and launched. And what did your packaging look like at that point? It was uh like a a clear cello bag with a label that we that we would paste on top. Like manually by hand, perhaps. The kids would do it. Your kids would do it. Yeah. Wow. So you are still So Anica Tripp and Ang and I and

Do these labels every night. Well, we called it Anchie's'cause somebody said you gotta name your po you gotta name your product'cause it can't be Kettle Corn Cafe, right? Like so we didn't know what Popcorn was called really. So we went to the grocery store and we looked online and what we saw at the time was um in the grocery store, it was Orville, it was Vic's. It was uh Cracker Jack. Pobbycock, Dale and Thomas, Harry and David, and I just

Turned to Dan and I said Where are the popcorn women? Yeah. When we come back. How Angie's kettle corn eventually managed to get into Trader Joe's, even though it almost didn't, and how it eventually spread just about everywhere.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We did. We fought a lot. Yeah, we and maybe that helped us. I'm not going to be able to do it. But I mean how did Angie how did you compartmentalize like you're dealing with patients who have serious mental issues And then you're like,

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

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

It was really hard to refocus and to realize that You know, we gotta keep moving forward here because we're you know, knee deep into this and and we have to find a way to continue to grow it, not really understanding where it was going or what the outcome future outcome was going to be still. Alright, I think it was around two thousand eight, um You had to get alone.

to get a much bigger space. I think like a million dollar loan. Um and you went to a bunch of banks. And What did they say? Were they were they eager to lend you the money? No.

Clearly you you had revenue coming in and Yeah, but we had debt. We didn't really have any collateral And I mean looking back now I I

I can kind of understand Bank's position at that time where we were And um it was just it was a long journey. It was really hard. Uh as the bank and they just said what? Yeah, and we we had communication with some you know, a variety of banks and some were more open to discussing than others and it was just I I think ultimately We just uh weren't strong enough in a strong enough position for them to lend us a lot of money. We needed a lot of money. You needed money for a bigger facility to ramp up production. Because we had just at this point decided to move into a big bigger facility at twenty five thousand square hours. How many people were working for you at that point?

Probably uh at that time, two thousand six, seven, maybe twenty ish or so. All full time or mixture of part time. But Found a partner uh that worked with us in uh a bank and and uh lent us the money gave us the money and gave us a line of credit.

And what did you have to what kind of collateral did you have to put you said you had no collaterals or probably receivables and uh personal guarantees. Yeah. Future earnings. Yeah. Um Everything but the minivan.

Yeah. Because you know, you your kids are getting older and You guys are in your forties at this point and you know, for a lot of people that's kind of a A turning point too, you start to think about, okay, at college and all these things. And and was any part of you nervous about that?

I I I don't I don't think you h when you make that decision like If you start going down that path. You're gonna crack. Because the bottom line was people loved our product. We just had to figure out how to make it.

Better more efficiently and how to get it into more stores. But did boo I mean, I imagine there was probably a little bit of frustration, right? Uh because people would probably come up to you and say, Oh you guys are Angie's I love your but kettle corn, it's awesome, you guys are crushing it, or so it's so great. In meantime, you're struggling financially. Well, can I just say like when you when you don't have any Real money to start out with, and all you have is ambition and potential and skills. You count on those things. you know, to make your way through, you know, and so we never really had any money and we did all kinds of amazing things in our lives, you know. So if this whole thing went south, we'd owe a lot of people a lot of money, but it wouldn't stop us from living our life. Did you feel the same way, Dan?

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

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

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

What do you got here? I've tried popcorn before, it's not gonna work. And I said, You haven't tried ours. You know, it's that line that all of us use is a No we s I sent it to her. Right. And so we She agreed. to bring us on.

What was the order that she put in? She put in an order for twenty five trucks. What does that mean? How many bags of popcorn is that? That was uh What, four or five hundred thousand dollars worth. It was crazy. And that would go all across the country in every trader Joe's? Yes. We didn't know she was gonna try it and we obvious we had some problems with some clumping that first order and she immediately called and said fix it or

We're kind of done. But at the same time, the scariest part was our line of credit for one hundred fifty thousand dollars had run out, and we didn't have any money to do it. And they're not going to pay you for thirty or sixty days. It wasn't going to be paid until later in June or July or something of two thousand eight. And you had to deliver it But we had to buy the supplies. But I see. We didn't have enough money to buy the supplies. So that was a terrifying it was like we were this close. How much did you need? Well There was a credit card that came through the mail, just another credit card. Ha ha

And it said uh Call for Hundred thousand dollars. And I got on the phone one night and said Can we get this hundred thousand dollars wired to us? And our credit was good.

And so they wired us$10,000. Probably. And so that allowed us to get To What was that check thing? That you had to do. Oh, like when they send you a check that says sign this, you get a hundred thousand dollars. I don't I don't remember. But it was in our bank account quickly. Yeah, it was. I'm gonna start paying attention to those checks in the mail. I didn't r I didn't realize it was a real okay. But once so once we had that, we could pay our staff, we could buy supplies, and we could

It would tie us over until we got paid by traders. And then traders came back with another order of like 25 trucks. And then that That's when we turn the corner. When we come back in just a moment, how Angie and Dan did a complete rebrand of the business and why they rejected the name Boom Chica Pow Pow. Stay with us, I'm Guy Roz, and you're listening to How I Built This.

Hey, welcome back to how I built this. Guy Rose. So it's around 2008 and things are looking up for Angie and Dan. Because Trader Joe's has just ordered another twenty five truckloads popcorn. But that also means the business has to scale up quickly and hire a lot more people. We were fortunate to to look to hire people during two thousand eight when the economy was sort of in the tank. And so there were a lot of people looking for work and and you guys were not that affected by the economic downturn. We and this was Dan's sort of strategy. It's when when

Things are going south, he's going north, you know, so You know I I I think we We just knew that there was opportunity out there because a lot of big companies were pulling back during the the recession. And and we were getting vibes from stores and from warehouse Casco and others that hey there's an opportunity here if you're willing to invest, because others are not. And so we Went for it.

at that time and and kind of said we'll do this, this, then we kind of said yes to everything, and we had because of that, we had to hire a lot of people quickly. To work in our plants we can manufacture enough to ship out. So you uh are starting to sell the I mean you're really this is selling well. At Trader Joe's.

Do you remember what your revenue was in two thousand nine? Maybe Three, four million. So I mean you could start to see the price to realise there was

A chance here but Angie, you stayed on until two thousand ten working as a nurse. What was the turning point for you where you thought, okay Um now I'm gonna be in this, you know, full time I'm gonna stop. You know.

Well I had I had um Left. the state because there was very little flexibility in at the state hospital. So I had left the state and started my own contracting business so that I could contract my time and have my own flexibility and say this is when I can work and I can't work. So you were still Basically

supporting your family, right? Dan was not you were not taking income from the company quite yet. Yes. We had a mortgage too, you know, so That was we were doing pretty well in in that regard, but I started weaning my time back because Dan would call me and he would say, Okay, we have a Costco meeting on May twelfth or whatever. Can you move your s clinic around and go to Costco. Uh sure. And when you did those meetings, like when when you went to Costco, how did you pitch them? Would would you Dan, would you have Angie kinda be the face of the product and make the pitch? Or did you make the pitch or did you guys kinda bounce off each other like you're doing now? Well initially I

Um, did all the sales calls early on, and then by the time we got to two thousand eight, nine, ten. Um especially After that when Ange came on full time, They wanted to see her. I mean she her name was on the package. And um she You know, told the story really well.

So I kinda So you know, instead of just instead of doing ops and sales and everything, I I kinda stayed focused on kind of the operational side, working with Greg, my brother, and kind of managing the team and and started focusing more on working with the sales side. You guys get a

An in outside investment firm, uh Sherbrook Capital it's a B C firm. Come in, make an offer. Did you feel at that time you needed you needed to have that? Capital to To grow in the way that you

You know that you want it to? Honestly we didn't know what they wanted. We didn't really understand private equity. We didn't know I mean I I wasn't a business person. I I I didn't know exactly how it worked, you know, and Anston. And so it was more my brother Greg who started taking me some interest in that and he's the one who initiated the dialogue with Sherbrook after they contacted us, sir.

Well and he he said like to us, he goes, You know, we don't need the money now, but if we're gonna continue to grow, we're gonna need money sometime. And we understood that because we had just been through years of like, Oh God, we need money. Yeah. Right. So um So even though we don't need it now, it made complete sense to us. And now we were in a position where we didn't need it and that's the time to go ask for it. So okay. But that money obviously helped because at that point you decide to begin a rebrand and to introduce to to move beyond just kettle corn. Right. Well and they okay, so a couple things that when they when we decided when we understood what private equity was about, like I had only ever seen private equity in movies and they were deconstructing businesses and they were the bad guys, right? Like But the you know, we these this Private equity was a small shop and they were had built brands and they were interested in partnering and we said we wanted our people's success to be

you know, success along with us. Can you help us figure out what to do? And they helped us set up a um An employee equity pool, they helped us set up a board, they helped us set up a professional sales team and build a marketing team. So there's a whole new Entirely new world. And it felt like like we understood partnership'cause Dan and I were in partnership you know this whole way. And so now we just had another partner. You know, we had we were now Our business was marrying their business.

And so what was the impetus to You know, because your kettle corn is your bread and butter, right? What is the impetus at that point to go to Yeah. Salted popcorn or buttered popcorn or other flavors. Was it

Was it them? Was it was it other people saying, Hey, you know, we want different flavors. Well in two thousand and eleven there there w we were in the National and Organic Snack section, right? So it and that's where we live. You're in Costco. You're at um Target at this point? Yes, we're in Target. And in a lot of regional grocery chains doing very well in the natural and organic sections. But it it to me when I looked at it on the shelf it looked very masculine. I used to walk the stores and just stare. You know, stare at the The salty snack. And the the natural organic snacks that were aimed at women, I thought, looked like they assumed we were all on a diet.

And so I was like Okay. Like we can do that, but we don't have to do it in that way. So let's do that, along with our kettle corn, let's do more. So we built out an innovation sort of product innovation map and started looking at innovation as more than just the product, but in the messaging and branding. Did you I mean it's this is also coincides with like the gluten free

Explosion, right? Which we are still in. Did that did you also were you also able to kinda ride that wave? We absolutely did. We would have mothers calling us. saying is your product certified gluten free and we this was early on Dan's cell phone was on every single package because that was our business number. Oh really? That was our business number. And so his cell phone would ring and it would be some mom standing in front of a Costco palette saying, is this allergen free? Well the the reason I did it I did it early on before

We were very big and I wanted all complaints to come to me. And it just We never ended up taking it off until Until 2011, until this private equity said it's time to get your phone number off your back. But yes, so we said yes, that we heard all these mothers calling us. Yeah, we gotta get certified gluten free. So we did.

Two thousand eleven you decide to Find uh somebody to help you with a new name. You go to a branding agency. We go yes.

And what and what what names do they come up with? Four really boring ones and one that I thought we thought was interesting. It was called Boom Chick a Pow Pow. Yeah. Good name.

Well we laughed, right? Like everybody laughs. And and this the brief was like hey we don't want to be diet, we want to elicit curiosity, we want to be something different. Uh we want to be celebratory and come from a position of empowerment, right? So this is going to be Angie's boom chick of Pow pow this is the days that um we were all at one table together and we had a business analyst at the end of the table eavesdropping on the presentation. And after the creative agency left, he said, you know, boom chica pow is 70s porn. Yeah. That would not go down well in the Mennonite church. No.

No, it would not. And we ever got we said, and how do you know? So we said, okay, but if there was energy, you know, there was energy and it and it it it had it struck the right tone and we just told them go back and fix it. They came back, boom chick-a-pop, we launched it in May of 2012. How did your Customer base respond to the new name.

Well we had buyers that said, oh that's just awful. You know, it's don't do that. Confusion. Right. Yes. Right. And and we don't really like it. They don't really get it. We had people internally that said, don't do this. And was our marketing director and myself, and we fought like yes, we want this, um, because it is We are not gonna do Angie's nearly naked, we're not gonna do Angie's skinny, we're not gonna do Angie's whatever that is. We wanna own something else. It's gonna be fun, it's gonna be creative, it's gonna be dimensional, it's gonna celebrate the feminine and you know for years women have bought you know, chips and everything that had that, you know, are marketed to men, and we don't think a thing about it. Um and so why not put a package out there that appeals to women

And I will say and and it was the first non-GMO branded popcorn on the market. And it it became our number one selling skew in four months. The yellow bags. The yellows after nine years of business. Wow. So I think around two thousand fourteen um T P G growth comes in a bigger private equity firm they buy out

Uh yeah. And um big stake in the company and It's real money. Um and I think

At that point you guys started to distribute. Money to people who had been with you and worked with you for a long time. Yeah, those uh granted equity shares became liquid for our staff.

Um I think so. Yeah. Mm. Do you remember? Do you remember how much money you were able to distribute?

Millions of dollars. And I mean that Can't probably doesn't happen very often in Mancato, right? Like a liquidity No, it's true. It doesn't.

I mean it it was you know for everyone that's not a very important thing. um had given you know, everything to us for in the company and and I mean it's still emotional, you know, thinking about it, but Um it w it was

Uh it was kind of a thank you to everybody. Um Then we got to do it again. And two thousand seventeen. Con Agora huge company that owns many brands.

Buys out. Your company uh reportedly for a quarter of a billion dollars. Astounding. A quarter of a billion dollars. I mean the brand. And the brand. And the brand. I mean, talk about a great$8,000,$10,000 investment for a flyby night kettlecorn.

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

I mean What uh di w did you even have time to absorb what that meant? I mean Uh were you just I don't know. You know, the the the last three years from fourteen to seventeen when when TPG came on. We sold uh

pretty big share of our ownership to TPG. I mean I think if we had to jump out and fourteen it would have been really hard. But we we we were had three years run where we were able to kinda slow step back

and participate as much as we wanted to and as much as The staff needed us. And so I think when Seventine came. It was the f the fourteen sale. was much more emotional.

In a sense because it was like Oh my God, we did it. Yeah. Yeah. And that whole thing about like hey we we started this to put our kids through college and have enough money. Yeah. Now we're doing that for All these other people.

I mean I mean you also I know you are a brand ambassador and you are on contract with with Conagra and Dan, are you involved with the company at all? I'm not. Not at all. Um First of all, I mean

The fact that you came into such a substantial amount of Has that substantially changed your lives? H and and so how? Uh yeah, I mean

I know we're Minnesota, no one likes to talk about money. I I think um Yeah, it's I I mean, you know, we just we Got into This later in life.

And so I mean I'm still wearing these jeans that I've had for ten years, so those are nice dad jeans. Yeah. I noticed those. I noticed those jeans. They're they're yeah. But yeah, it's allowed us, it's given us an opportunity to

do things that never would have had the opportunity to do. I mean Could you have imagined when you ordered that kettle and it arrived in your garage and you were like Mixing it and burning the corn, the popcorn like

That you would go on it would go on to be purchased for a quarter of a billion dollars like Sixteen years later? Could you could you have imagined that? No. No. No. Never. I mean not even not even probably halfway through or three quarters of the way through did we think about it in that way. I mean it was just for us looking at the next horizon and the next thing that we needed to do and the next right thing that we needed to do. I have done

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

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

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

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

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

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

Whatever it meant. Yeah. Do you think Uh Dan, first to you, do you think that w what you achieved? In this business was the result of your work and your skill and your intelligence, or do you think that luck played a big part?

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

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

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

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

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

Co-founders A boom chicken pot. Spoke to Angie and Dan Bastion at the Ordway Concert Hall. In Saint Paul, Minnesota. And by the way, that original kettle they bought in 2001?

Angie and Dan no longer own it. When Con Agra bought the company in two thousand seventeen, They also acquired that old kettle. And Angie believes it is now sitting in the back of a very large storage facility somewhere in Minnesota. Hey, thanks so much for listening to this live episode of How I Built This. Our show was produced by Rachel Faulkner with music composed by R teen Arablii. Thanks also to our live events team, Allie Prescott, Rachel McGrath, John Isabella, and Andy Hewther.

Our production team includes Neva Grant, Jeff Rogers, JC Howard, Casey Herman, Julia Carney, Alex Chung, Carrie Thompson, and Elaine Coates. Our intern is Margaret Sarino. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This. This is NPR.

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