Two Best Friends Dish Out Ramen Worth $10M+

This week on "The Launch Hour Podcast" we are joined by the co-founders of immi ramen, Kevin Lee and Kevin Chanthasiriphan to discuss various aspects of their company's growth and their evolving roles as co-founders and friends.

We dive into the team's expansion, funding announcements, and retail partnerships. They talk about the development of their product line, specifically focusing on improving their noodles and introducing new flavors. They discuss the challenges of scaling a remote company and the need for effective communication and alignment as the team grows. They balance friendship and business emphasizing the importance of complementary skill sets and shared values. There were many heartwarming moments with customer feedback that create a sense of pride felt by their team members in contributing to a product that positively impacts people's health.

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*There is explicit language and content in this podcast episode. It is not meant to encourage or promote the use of explicit language or other materials. It is meant to help in telling an entirely authentic, truthful story.* 

Transcript

Eva: 0:16

So excited to have the Kevins from immi today. How are you guys doing?

Kevin Lee: 0:23

Good. It's, yeah, it's been a long four years since

Eva: 0:28

we're, where are you guys

Jane: 0:29

at? Are you, yeah. What's the latest, what's the most exciting

Kevin Lee: 0:32

thing these days?

Kevin C.: 0:33

You can go first. I need to think about this. There's just too much excitement.

Kevin Lee: 0:38

I don't want it to take K chance thunder cuz he's, maybe K Chan can cover product side. But I think we're obviously excited to grow the team and we're 12 people now which has been nice and we've been, but we've tried to keep it. We wanna keep it as lean as possible. Cause things just get. They bloat really quickly. But team has been awesome. We've obviously announced some great like funding announcements since we last spoke. And yeah, I think just like retail has been awesome. We're in about like 1500 retail tours as of hopefully like actually this end of this month, and that's been pretty

Kevin C.: 1:10

exciting as well.

Eva: 1:12

Crazy, is it

Kevin Lee: 1:14

four years? Since we had dinner, but we, I guess this is technically like our third year in market cuz we launched January, 2021.

Kevin C.: 1:24

Wow. On the product side couple of we finally, after three years launched new products. That's been a big part of our focus. I know when we first worked with you guys, we had our terrible version one noodles, which was not quite noodles,

Kevin Lee: 1:39

But noodle like.

Kevin C.: 1:40

And then, obviously the big pivot was when we actually had our fried ramen bricks. That was like our version too. But since then we've made a lot of improvements on the noodles. So we just released to the public the latest iteration of our products. And the noodles are much closer to traditional instant ramen.

Kevin Lee: 2:01

We like to joke that,

Kevin C.: 2:02

Now even the Asian people like it, people really high bar for noodles. But on top of that, we actually finally launched new flavors. They've been in r d for a while and we actually finished r d. It just takes a long time to commercialize it, so just super excited reception for the, that has been really good so far. Yeah, a lot of exciting movement on the products and supply chain side too.

Eva: 2:24

Yeah. You guys. Crushed it in the past four years. Your problems are very different from most companies. And I wanna talk about that. I wanna call them like first world problems that all our problems are. Yeah. Paid problems, no real

Kevin C.: 2:40

right. Champagne problems.

Eva: 2:42

Talk us through some of the crazy highlights of a high growth company. What were some things that surprised

Kevin Lee: 2:50

you? Gosh, it's so funny you're calling us high growth. I feel like Kate and I both smiled out loud when you said

Kevin C.: 2:55

that cause we were like,

Kevin Lee: 2:56

we still feel like we're at the starting line. Yeah. That's usually what it feels like. I pain points of a high growth company. Let's internalize that Khan for a second. Wow. Let's soak that in. I think here I can go first. I think some pain points without even getting like too tactical into sales and marketing stuff. K Chan and I were talking about how some of our company processes are starting to break down. Because we have always been a remote company, we didn't even have an employee for the first, I think year and a half or maybe even two years. And then it was only really in the last one and a half years that we started growing our team pretty dramatically. And It is hard to just ensure that communication flows properly amongst all of the different functions. Now, where we used to not even really need these cross-functional team meetings because it was just me and k Jen and we talked, every week. And now it's just nice to see some of the leaders in our organization self-organizing to make sure that marketing is translating demand forecasting to ops and products so they know how much to order, and then finance needs to also be on top of adjusting the budget accordingly. So just from a culture standpoint, it's been both scary and fun to see how we have to evolve our culture to match the fact that our team has grown and we have to always keep people motivated on a weekly basis. You

Eva: 4:19

know, we always wanna like build this like startup culture, but then when you get older there are things you have to put in place that feel a little corporate in order to stay smooth. There's always that fine balance.

Kevin C.: 4:33

And this is something that I've definitely been thinking about a lot, and I'm sure Kevin Lee or Kelly has been thinking about this and is, by definition a champagne problem. Now that we have 12 people on our team I spent a lot of my day-to-day thinking about what I should be doing because we now have people who are smarter than me at their respective job functions. So I was the equivalent of a elementary school kid trying to do supply chain and product. And now we have like PhD level folks who are really moving the needle in a meaningful way. And I've encountered that the best thing I can do is just get out of people's way and then start to figure out, hey, how should I be spending my time in order to become an accelerant for the work that people do on our team. So I'm never gonna be as good at making soups as our head of r and d or managing supply chain, like I know enough to be destructive. Less so productive, but destructive. And so a lot of the work now is how do we facilitate communication cuz everybody is working in their respective silos. And make sure that information doesn't fall down like through the cracks. Kayleigh and I are properly communicating strategy and priorities because the one advantage that the two of us have is that we have the ability to set the direction and the objectives and the goals for the company. And it's really about making sure that everybody else is aligned and we're all working towards the same direction, as opposed to like paddling in opposite places.

Jane: 5:59

And on that topic I guess how have you guys as co-founders evolved, like in terms of your roles and what your relationship looks like?

Kevin C.: 6:09

We talk less cause we fewer meetings together which is sad. And I don't know. I find out whenever I hang out with K Lee again, and I don't know if you feel the same way but it tends it went, it swung from like we were friends. Then we became like intense business partners, like a bickering married couple. And now that we're like each in our own lanes, again, it's, for me, it's felt more like a return to normalcy around friendship and like, Hey, what are you up to? What's going on in your world? Because there is like that much bigger of a gap now between what we do. And so yeah, it sucks cuz we live in different places now, so we don't see each other in person as often. But I would say like the interactions have gone back to less, like stepping on each other's toes. Everybody, desperately trying to keep this company alive to hey let's keep our respective functions humming and making sure that we're partnering together.

Kevin Lee: 7:01

Yeah, I think nailed it on there. We have a privilege now where, because the, we each run our own divisions that each have leaders in them. When we get together for our one-on-ones, it is very much Hey, how you doing? Or what's been going on personally or, Hey, did you hear about this crazy thing that happened And there's just there's no way we really can comment on each other's work anymore cuz it's so siloed and yes, we can provide the outside perspective of. Hey, I noticed that there was this communication breakdown between, the person in my org and your org. How can we work to resolve that? But that's an organizational like culture topic versus a, Hey, your model is broken in this regard and this is how we should fix it. Not that I would know how to do that anyways that's been nice. Probably should carve out more time just to talk in general, because we usually only have one, one-on-one meeting each week for 45 minutes. And we also sounds, yeah, and then that's the extent of it because our Monday weekly like team meetings everyone's involved so we don't really get one-on-one time there. And then on Slack, we're actually, both of us are now in meetings all day long and we probably exchange a few lines of text. If that a day. So there's barely any interaction to a certain extent. So that's also sad.

Jane: 8:17

Aw, you miss each other.

Eva: 8:23

Yeah, I'm like smiling and I know jean's smiling and. Jane and I are thinking about the same things, but your journey as co-founders are really similar to ours, and we always knew this right? When we had dinner and we hang out, we're best friends to start with and still amazing friends. However, there's this now layer of business that's an undertone in everything you do. Jane and I only talk personally through Messenger, right? No personal talk on Slack. We create, rules of engagement. And Jane, you can talk about what happened recently. Yeah,

Jane: 9:01

I joke about how we have such a fucked up relationship because we are business partners, but our best friends and we like love each other so much and but also like care about the business. And sometimes those like conflict and sometimes one person like resents the other person because like it's like too much business or too much personal. And then you don't wanna hurt each other's feelings you know? There's like this weird dynamic where we wanna never let each other down and so we take on the pain of whatever it is at that moment. And we were like, we need therapy. It's like we desperately need couples

Eva: 9:34

therapy. It's like two Asian couples, right? Yeah. There's a lot of stuff to work through there.

Kevin Lee: 9:43

I think you nailed it when you said that, Jane. That's very real.

Jane: 9:46

Yeah. And it's like really awesome to see that the story of being best friends and then turning into co-founders can still exist with both of these case studies here. But that is so rare and even in Eva's and I pa pass lives, like we've had very hard, breakups with co-founders. I guess like what is the one thing for you guys that you think keeps a healthy relationship going

Kevin C.: 10:09

There was something somebody said to me recently that really stood out, which was complimentary skillsets, but extreme alignment on values. And I think that's the one thing that K Lee and I shared. I always make this joke cuz people always wanna start companies with their best friends because they like it's seems like a fun idea at first. But I think in actuality in actuality adds a layer of communication complexity that doesn't exist in a purely professional relationship. So I always like to joke that, K Lee and I have survived this far and in spite of our friendship. And if you were to ask me. Would I start this company with my wife? Absolutely not. The answer is no. And she always jokes. She's let's start a company together. I'm like, no, not unless you want to like separate. Because it's difficult, right? Like it's very difficult. And Kayleigh and I have gone through rough patches, but I think the thing that I would appreciate very much so about Kaylee's, his, like openness to communication. He's like very open to having dialogue and exploring like with curiosity. Whereas sometimes I can cross my arms and be like, I'm just not gonna talk to this person for a week cuz I just need to blow some steam. Whereas he is not like that. And I think it's very conducive and healthy for our relationship.

Kevin Lee: 11:19

I'm a very sensitive soul. It's like hard to not talk things out when there is a problem. But I think Khan yeah he phrased it really nicely and there is, I had heard like a different variation of that, which was like, Minds opposed, hearts aligned. Which was like your minds can be at odds and like complimentary. And maybe that's actually a good thing because you should think each person should think differently, but the hearts are aligned, which AKA is like the values are aligned, then you're always gonna work out. And it's like a romantic relationship, right? You could have different interests, but if your values are aligned, you're probably gonna still work out regardless. But yeah. I'll end there cuz kitchen already covered nicely.

Eva: 11:57

That's beautiful. Totally resonate with that. Cool. You're still amazing friends. Your company is in store. Tell us more about some of the magical moments that happened as a result of building immi. Magical moments. Yeah. Some like heartwarming Yeah. Moments like either with your customers, like things that made you feel, wow, okay, we are doing something meaningful here.

Kevin Lee: 12:29

There are a lot I think on the customer side I probably get a lot more exposure to it just because on the sales and marketing side, I am constantly looking at like customer reviews and these like videos that people are pasting, like sending to us so that, cuz we use the U G C in a lot of our ads, but we have a customer love channel in our Slack that is meant to share a lot of this content for our team as well, just from like a morale standpoint. I wish I had these snippets in front of me. But a lot of, for example, like mothers will write in and say someone wrote in recently, she said I'm literally crying right now. I just came home and normally my child is just so fussy about everything and I just don't wanna deal with another problem after a long, horrible day at work. But my child just ate immi and loved it and I didn't like, didn't struggle at all. And you don't know how much that means to me as like a working mother and then it's underlying all that, it's like just this feeling that she trusted our product enough to feed it to her baby. And because she knows that it's good for the baby, but also something they would find delicious and great to eat. So those kind of customer stories, it is just really heartwarming. I think other thing that is heartwarming is hearing our team then internalize it. So the other day, Our growth manager in one of our like team sessions, like someone asked a question around what he would be proud of, later in life and he said oh, I'm actually really proud to just even work on immi right now, specifically because he's like, I know that like even when I'm doing growth stuff or optimizing our website, trying to come up with creative ad angles, like ultimately it's because we're delivering a good product to the world, something that actually is improving people's health and he doesn't feel like gross or like slimy about doing all these growth hacks and stuff because he knows at the end of the day, we're just trying to deliver more good things to the world. And that's a very proud thing to hear, I think as a founder, to know that you've built this product and a vehicle for people to come, join and feel good about the work they do. So those are very heartwarming more recent events.

Kevin C.: 14:28

there's two magical moments that vividly stand out in my mind. The first was when we basically launched version one. We were getting a lot of flack from customers that it didn't taste good. And I think kept both Kayleigh and I were in the dumps about the prospects of this company. We were thinking, oh man we're screwed. We're going bankrupt for sure.

Kevin Lee: 14:48

And it was around that time, like I,

Kevin C.: 14:50

We started like formulating another noodle and Kayleigh was just like, why don't you run with it? I'll figure out how to deal with marketing and managing our first product. And so I just kinda sat in my kitchen and I remember I was making a huge mess in my kitchen. I had this giant dutch oven, crock pot of oil. And I was like trying to deep fry noodles and had all these like oil burns on my hands. But then I made the first. Prototype of the new version. And I was like, oh my God, this doesn't taste shitty. And I remember I messaged K Lee right away and I was like dude, I have something exciting. And then I ran over and it was like right before Christmas, I ran from my place down the street to his place, it's like around half a mile. And I sprinted, I remember like full on sprinting. And I had this Ugly ass noodle that I had made in my fryer. And then I let him taste it. And then he tasted it and he looked at me, he's dude, this is good. This is way better than what we had. And it was just that, that feeling of oh my God. Like we literally thought we were gonna, that was the end of it. And we had to do something new. And then suddenly being able to luck into, something that might save the company. And we've had more than one of those. Types of moments where we were just like, oh God, we're screwed. And then things turned around. But that was like a core memory that's lodged in my brain. And then I think the second one was actually Kayleigh alluded it to it with our team, when we first started this company. I think underlying our objective of, creating healthier food for people, there is also this more selfish desire too. We create this fun environment that we had when we were first met each other actually at Kabam, the gaming company. It was just like the best job I had ever had. Up until Emmy, of course. But fast forward to, what was it? March was, it was March of this year, right? We had our team offsite. Kaleigh, yeah. Yeah. We had our team offsite. And then that was like the first time we met most of the people on our team because everyone's remote. Wow. And we, like Kayleigh had booked a karaoke room. Everyone was having a great time. People were singing, people were drinking, and we like looked at each other. And then there was this moment where we're just like, this is what we've been seeking this entire time. This is part of the reasons why we started this company for ourselves is to recreate that feeling again of what it's like to have fun while achieving something together. And that was also like another core memory that just it like seared itself into my brain.

Kevin Lee: 17:09

Oh, the crazy part, Khan is someone commemorated that moment and they took a Polaroid photo and I have it on my desk and it's also going like dancing and like pointing at each other. Cause I remember that conversation. It was like a drunk conversation we were having, but it was great.

Kevin C.: 17:24

Yeah, it was drunk but memorable. Yeah.

Jane: 17:28

Yeah, I mean it's interesting cuz like we've been doing this podcast and we went in chronological order. So basically the first person that we launched like more labs and then we went to hydrant and like et cetera, et cetera. And the first company that we launched now, like seven years, six years old now, which is like crazy. Wow. The person has been at it for six, seven years now and when we were talking to them we just talked to them about what keeps them going, because working on a product for seven years, it's like a long ass time. And I'm curious for you guys you guys are in the middle, I think it's been like three years now soon or before, and then you guys will reach that six or seven part. What will keep you guys going? Is it the fun of building a company or is it a bigger vision?

Kevin Lee: 18:11

I think vacation and I we talk about this a lot actually because we have created the culture that we love. We are doing work we feel proud of. Yeah. I think both of us know that we don't, we never want to get to a state where like we're in like a zombie state where like the company's flatlined and who knows if like we'll ever, see anything and it's just you're in this weird position. And we are scared of that too because I think that's where you can really stagnate just in, in everything, in every aspect. And It's an important question cuz we haven't felt that yet, luckily. And we hope I think the fear of that is actually what keeps us, like intensely motivated. Obviously apart from everything we've talked about before with our friendship and like the team. But and like we just don't wanna let each other down and get to that point. So I wish I had like a clear answer of oh, our motivation will be just as strong in the next five years, but, All our role models and everyone we've seen before that that's just not true. Like I think I know the founders who have been working for seven to eight years and it's not a fun point at that point. If they're not, if they are in that zombie mode. So it's anything, it's probably the fear of not being, that, that is, that, that is like keeping us like aggressively going. If I'm being a hundred percent honest. I'll be 99% honest you because I think there's 1% of me that's I could probably do this the rest of my life as long as k Chan is here, it's fine.

Kevin C.: 19:31

Aw. Yeah. I'll first say I a hundred percent agree with K Lee on that. There's this reinforcing cycle where when you find success it breeds excitement and joy and it emo it keeps us going. And there's that downward spiral that we're just trying to avoid too. I think fun is a big part of the equation as well. We're just like in unchartered territory personally, cuz this is this is my first company. I know K Lee had a business before in the past, but it, we've never done anything with CPG before. We don't know how far we can take this. And part of it is like setting a goal and a vision, but not being too tied to that outcome. And loosely holding onto it and doing what you feel is the right thing to do that keeps it. Energizing and not draining. And then the, I'd say the second piece of motivation is before there was a lot of just accountability between the two of us. It's not gonna lie without K Lee, there probably been moments where I'm like, eh, screw this. I'll just move on to another idea. But because we were in the boat together, I was like, I gotta keep paddling cuz he just, I don't wanna leave him paddling. And now we have a team, right? And so now it's gone from a rowboat to, maybe a sailboat where we can fit full people on it. And there's a lot more crew who's just depending on each other to, to get to where we want to go. And there's a loyalty factor to that too. And I would say there are, we have investors as well who've came to support and we feel like a strong need to Deliver for them as well. And so it's really this community of people who joined us on our silly quest to, to sell better, better noodles to everybody in the world. They believed in us and I think we owe it to them to do right by them.

Eva: 21:03

Sounds like you both have values that are really timeless. No matter like how the company shifts or how your priorities shift in life personally you know that as long as there's fun. We'll keep going.

Kevin C.: 21:17

Definitely.

Eva: 21:19

And you can say speedboat, you don't have to say,

Kevin C.: 21:23

We're not we're not a

Kevin Lee: 21:24

speedboat yet. We have the wins behind us right now.

Jane: 21:29

Did you guys ever have if you had to name like one moment where both of you guys were like, shit, like this is like rock bottom. Can you guys, are you guys both Doing telepathy right now. And you guys know what that

Kevin Lee: 21:40

moment is? Yeah, I know the story. K Lee gonna tell it. Yeah. We talk about this a lot. It was, yeah. It was basically when we were going to launch the first version of our product and we both knew it wasn't anywhere close to the golden standard we wanted. And for, for many reasons. But our broth. We had this other manufacturer who was helping us with the broths and this our champion there, the guy who brought us in e even though he didn't have to, we were just a startup. He'd always been by our side. He helped us create these amazing bras. He tried our noodles and he called. Both of us individually. And he called me and he was like, Kaylee I just want to be very honest with you. If you launch this, you will fail. And he said, I just really like you guys, and I took this chance on you guys. I've been with you guys this whole time, but you will fail. And I don't want you guys to fail. I really think you guys should not launch. And and I told it was, it's such a visceral moment because I was in my room. My, my now wife was next to me, and then I like slowly hung up the phone and I just went in the bathroom and I turned off the lights and I just sat in the bathtub and I had never really done that before. It's like a very core memory to like, sit in the bathtub quietly in the dark. But I just needed like a moment to be by myself because I also was like, I don't know how we're gonna come out of this. And luckily k n was a lot more level-headed about it, where he was just like, we should launch anyways because what's the harm? There's, I'll let K n kind of talk through his.

Kevin C.: 23:06

Yeah. Yeah. We were heading into a storm and we ended up buying, I think a quarter million dollars worth of this product that we couldn't move. And so our initial sales went well. We were selling like hotcakes, but then we started getting customer feedback and looking at the repeat purchase data. And I guess I've never seen a percentage that low before in terms of repeat purchase. It was sub a whole percent. It was like in the fractions and we were like, oh man, we're gonna, we're gonna lose a lot of money here.

Eva: 23:36

What's insane though that did not come through as a third party? Like the horrible flavor, the horrible texture that you're mentioning. I. It didn't come through as the strong message or the, for the message in the forefront,

Kevin C.: 23:55

so there was, you mean from us or It didn't come through when you made the project? It didn't come through,

Eva: 23:58

In, in the world of reviews and people talking to each other about the product.

Jane: 24:06

Didn't taint the brand at all. No. It's, it didn't, yeah. Affect. Yeah. And do you know

Eva: 24:11

why?

Kevin C.: 24:13

It's cause

Eva: 24:15

Go for it. Your community was so strong to begin. They were here for your mission. And they knew that this product would have to be an iterative process. Because I remember when we started that beta group together, it was like, Fire and people joined ASAP and started, interacting, engaging. We built so many communities and that's one of the few that we're really engaged. Obviously thanks to both of you, working really hard on it, but I think that community

Kevin C.: 24:49

helped a lot. Yeah, for sure that we still leverage that community a ton these days. Like the people who joined that community in the early days were very loyal followers of our brand. K Lee deserves a lot of the credit for nurturing that community and being proactive about. Updates and sharing. We've always been

Eva: 25:08

a founder's, so active in community, literally every

Kevin C.: 25:12

comment. Yeah. Yeah. But it's really made a world of difference for us. And people still respond. We did a couple of Facebook lives in that community and. It was like really touching, to see people hop on for an hour or to listen to us like try to sell our noodles and talk about why we created something and people were very kind. I can't say that's true about people outside of the community, but the people in the community for us, they're a very special group of people who are. Very supportive. And even when things didn't taste good, there were a couple messages where they're like, Hey good on you guys for trying to do something different. And we believe that you can, continue to improve. And seeing, that feedback back then and seeing some of the feedback on the new Noodles now, there's just so much enthusiasm and I. I'm, it makes us feel so happy that they continue to stick together with us and be supportive of us.

Jane: 26:06

Are your parents very proud of you guys? Like good Asian kids

Kevin Lee: 26:11

that you guys are? I don't know if they're, I don't think they still understand, quite yet. Which is funny because it's now, three, four years later. My parents. Ha My mom had the recent version and she still was just like, she's it's different. It's different than what I'm used to. And I was like, you know what? I don't know if I'm ever gonna get there. Ever. And I think I'm okay with that Now. I'm trying to evolve beyond that because they. The thing they do know is that I'm definitely happy. I use, I think in the past 10 years over tech or even finance, there were definitely times I would come visit home and it wasn't like I was always just like cheerful and positive. And I think now that they see me and in a state where like I'm always generally positive and. I even have just the free time where like I visit them and it's like a Wednesday I can walk with my dad and go get boba. Like that just didn't really exist before. And I think that kind of freedom is you just can't, you can't replace that, right? The quality time that we now have to do stuff like that. In that sense hopefully they're very proud of that. But I would just love for them to love like the product. Like I, like we literally created it so they would stop eating like shitty instant Ramen and it was like they, I don't know, it's gonna take some time. So that's,

Kevin C.: 27:23

that's been an uphill battle still for me. My, my dad still loves shitty ramen. I told him not to use like, bad vegetable oils and he's nah, it's different. I don't wanna use your avocado oil. It's funny cuz my dad, he's the chef of the family and he's always been in the food space. Like he worked at a like grocery distributor and then like a market, and then he ran briefly ran his own restaurant. But when I told him I was gonna start the company, he was like, why Earth would you do that? Like, how are you gonna compete against Maran? He like did the classic like protective, like parental thing where he is just like trying to prevent me from having my heart broken. But he was doing it in a way where it's just like shitting on my dreams. He's since come around to that. It's really funny cuz my mom, since day one, after I told my dad and he was just like poo-pooing over everything. Like my mom pulled me aside, he's look. I don't know what's gonna happen, but I'm proud of you regardless, and I believe it'll be successful. And this is before we even launched the product, before we even started the company. And then my dad recently, I saw him for Father's Day or before Father's Day, and he was like, I always believed in you, son. I told you no, did not.

Jane: 28:30

For sure being an Asian founder we all come from a career that our parents really wanted us to be in and then starting something. For sure. There's there was hesitation on my parents' part too.

Eva: 28:41

My dad still doesn't know what we do since we're like a videography company because we did so many like hydrant videos or like morning recovery videos, and that's the most tangible thing they can show people.

Jane: 28:57

I know my parents go to Korea a lot and they always come back with a product idea and they're like, here, and they just give it to me and they're like, go. And I'm like,

Kevin Lee: 29:05

what? Wow. That's good. That's a lot of trust. Yeah. That seems like that's great. An important thing that. I know, but I'm like, you need

Kevin C.: 29:13

money, dude. It's a lot of work.

Kevin Lee: 29:17

I dunno, you guys launch companies without money. So I think it's a testament to it, they believe you're, it works. I think we're living proof, right? Our community really was, thanks to you too. The whole concept. And so I don't think we say thank you enough.

Eva: 29:29

We're just happy for you. Yeah. Honestly, very proud.

Kevin Lee: 29:34

Very proud. Yeah, for sure. Were your children.

Eva: 29:44

You need approval from your blood parents. Okay,

Jane: 29:49

Before we end things off what would be a piece of advice for someone who's seriously thinking of starting a consumer brand right now at this state of the world?

Kevin Lee: 29:58

Yeah. It's funny, I actually spoke about this a little bit this morning. I think we are inundated with consumer products right now, and obviously I think your consumer product needs to solve a core problem. Blah, blah, blah. But I think consumers are just so smart these days. Like they're so smart. And you really have to understand, as a founder what is the narrative that you're bringing? Is your narrative true? People look at our brand and they, like you said, Eva, they will be forgiving of everything as long as they believe in your mission. And the only reason they believe in your mission is because they believe in the narrative behind the company. And the narrative of the founders. They know that me and Kay Chan started this company for the right reasons. For family, even for just like our personal interests like I was. I was laughing this morning cuz I said growing up I was always the one who, I would take my friends to these restaurants and I'd order like the spiciest, sitan, numbing. Both flavors, but then when they asked about rice, I'd be like, oh, I want the brown rice. I was always like, the ha, I, it was both flavors, but I still want it to be healthy. And that's just like a narrative I've always had. It's true to me, and it's why I eat me like four times a week, even though people are like, aren't you sick of your product? I'm like, no. That's just I actually like it. This is why we created it and you just cannot dispute that. And people will always fall in love with that. And that's why our founder story ads do the best and they've always done the best because people believe our narrative, because it's a true narrative, we never had to make anything up. So I think you have to define that for yourself. Otherwise, you're always gonna feel that misalignment when you're running your brand

Kevin C.: 31:29

On that vein a hundred percent agree with Kayleigh it's interesting that people gravitate to our founder story so much. My, one advice Especially for new company people, starting new companies is it's really important to find this intersection of what you care about and what consumers care about. Too often I encounter folks who are very passionate about something and they're like, oh, I love this. And it's great that you love it. And it's important because it'll give you the feel and the energy and the, the motivation to run the marathon. But at the same time, it's, that's, that alone oftentimes is not enough. And it's really about finding people who think in a very similar vein and behave in a really similar way to you. So therefore, they were very likely to share your same passion. And I think a large part of this was just, K Lee and I found each other. We were both passionate about noodles. And we had a thesis and we worked with you guys to find even more people who were also passionate about noodles and that gave us the confidence to, to really move forward. And there was like a fork in the road where there was a moment that, we were both evaluating, hey, like we can go and turn this recipe into pasta. We're like, that's a bigger market. Way bigger except more of the grocery space. It just made a ton of financial, in business sense, to go down that path. But then we looked at each other. We're just like, what are two Asian dudes doing selling pasta, first of all. And secondly, dude I love past, but I don't love that as much. I love ramen. And then I can't say that if we hadn't launched pasta and ran into those hardships, we would've kept going. I think we would've lost interest very fast. And so it was like that center of the Venn diagram of like our interests and the interests of the people in the communities around us.

Eva: 33:16

I'm just imagining K Lee eating pasta four days a week now.

Kevin Lee: 33:21

Not my thing.

Eva: 33:23

Amazing. Thank you so much for both of your time. Catching up. It's been so long.

Kevin C.: 33:29

Thank you for listening to us, listening to me ramble mostly, but

Kevin Lee: 33:33

yeah, no, it was so good there. There was this moment where we all signed on the Zoom and we were just like quietly looking at each other and we were like, oh my God. Look how far we've come. It's been like four years. I feel like we all felt that moment. But it was really nice to see you both cause. I don't even know. We wouldn't, we definitely would not be where we are today without like launch Pop and what you two have helped us do. That was not an idea we had like around the way launch community.

Kevin C.: 33:58

Yeah. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. We definitely miss interacting with you guys on a weekly basis.

Eva: 34:03

Hey, you guys ever wanna hang out digitally or whatever

Kevin C.: 34:07

format? Digitally?

Kevin Lee: 34:09

Digitally. Digitally.

Kevin C.: 34:11

Wow. Did PAL

Eva: 34:15

Thank you so much. Have a good day

Kevin Lee: 34:17

guys. Bye. Take care.