The Startup CPG Podcast

01:52 Jessi: Hi Olivia, welcome to the show today. How are you?

01:56 Olivia: Hi Jess, how are you? I'm doing great.

01:59 Jessi: I am doing so well because I'm so excited to get to talk to you and have you here. I'm wondering if you could start us off by introducing yourself and Twrl Milk Tea.

02:07 Olivia: Hi everyone, I'm Olivia Chen, co-founder of Twrl Milk tea. I am based in San Francisco Bay Area. My better half, Pauline, and I have been running Twrl Milk Tea for about two and a half years. We're a cafe style milk tea with boba toppings inspired by our Chinese and Taiwanese heritage, as well as innovation, sustainability, and health. I'm so excited to kind of get on the air and talk with you about all things Twrl.

02:32 Jessi: Yeah. Amazing. And can you tell us all of the SKUs that you currently have out in the world? Just kind of walk us through the product lineup.

02:40 Olivia: Yeah. We have six SKUs in total. We have four milk teas and they're all non-dairy, plant-based, toffee, allergen-free. We have a Hojicha Roasted Green Tea, a Taiwan Style Black, as well as a Jasmine Pu'er. And then our last is a caffeine-free Ube Milk Tea. And so we just like to kind of make it simple for people who basically have a black, a green, a jasmine, and a caffeine-free milk teas. And then we have two boba toppings. So we have a brown sugar and a crystal boba. And so those are toppings that you can place with any desserts, savory or sweet, and also with any drinks, not just our milk teas. And so we're really excited to have these six SKUs part of our lineup.

03:20 Jessi: Amazing. Oh, that's awesome. And you have accomplished so much in the last few years, you and Pauline and your team. So I'm so excited to dig into all of that and some of your recent excitement and wins. But I also want to go back in time a little bit and would love if you can tell us about the founding story. What did it look like for you and Pauline to start this take us back in time a little bit.

03:42 Olivia: Yeah, so it really stemmed back actually 20 plus years ago. So Pauline and I have been friends for 20 plus years, and we started at a tech startup. We were working in marketing under a gentleman named Glenn Kelman, who's the currency of Redfin, who's an amazing marketer and data-driven person. This is an individual that in the elevator would be like, tell me your elevator pitch. Tell me about this. And so he really honed our marketing skills and our ability to just be on pulse and really in tune with customers. So it started from that journey being together. And when we worked together, we always had this love of food. So whether or not it's looking for the newest innovations in restaurants or the newest places to eat, that really that love for food really kind of tied us together as being friends. And then another thing that really I think we both wanted to do was probably about 15 years ago, we talked about starting a food and beverage company. We wanted to do lotus-inspired chips and barley popcorn, foods that really were inspired by our Chinese and Taiwanese heritage, but we really couldn't find in the marketplace. So I remember combing through the stores of Whole Foods, and not finding any of these Asian-inspired snacks in the ethnic aisle or the normal aisles. And so when the pandemic hit, Pauline was iterating on milk teas. She's vegetarian. The bubble shops had all closed. She couldn't find something. So basically, she started concocting all these different milk teas, trying 20 plant-based milks. And she said, Hey, Olivia, you know what's in my fridge, my pandemic extra fridge? It's not vegetables or breads. It's all different types of milk tea concoctions. And she's like, I think I found the right formulation. I think I found something that really tastes amazing. And do you want to work on it with me? And I was like, yeah, naivety. Totally. Let's just do it. We've been working for other people our entire lives doing marketing. She did food and packaging for 20 years. I did events and publicity and marketing campaigns for beauty and author brands. But we decided to just basically join forces and just bring our love for milk tea, our heritage, and really bring Twrl to life. And the reception has been tremendous. We've won a few awards, Best Beverage from BevNet, Food Network Editor Pick, Bon Appetit Highly Recommended. And we're really just heartened by consumers really Twrling behind us about this product that they feel doesn't exist, that should exist, and they're really clamoring for it in their own homes, and they're asking retailers for it. As I mentioned earlier, Pauline tested 20 plant-based milks. And so we netted out with peas because they were really sustainable for the environment, very low water usage, low carbon emissions, and they also offer protein per drink. So we really are excited about those type of ingredients profiles that allow consumers to feel good about what they're drinking and then the feeling that they can support farmers that are planting in season, that care about sustainability. They can care about that their non-dairy options are actually good for the environment. So those are kind of the things that we kind of highlight. Our drinks are 45 to 80 calories. They're also 7 to 8, 9 grams of sugar. So they're considered kind of lower, better for you options. And we really… A bubble milk tea is usually like 350 to 450 calories and 35 grams to 45 grams of sugar. Non-dairy options as oat milk will actually add more calories and sugar. So we We just want to have a balance. We love the Boba Cafe experience, but we also want to offer something that you can have every day as a coffee alternative or as a pick-me-up. And so those are the things that we really strive when we think about what do we want to offer consumers? What is missing? And that lower sugar, lower calories are trends that are here because health is such a big, conscious, important part of all of us. I'm sure everyone has a secretive desire to live a long, long time. And so one part of that journey is that health aspect.

07:42 Jessi: Yeah, that's amazing. What did it look like to go from Pauline's kitchen and extra fridge to then the cans that you have today? And I also believe you have a sustainability mission and everything as well. So I'd love to hear a little bit about that, how you're eliminating single use plastic cups. But I'm curious what the process was like to kind of go from in the kitchen to the beautiful cans that you have today and something that consumers can purchase at the store.

08:06 Olivia: Well, I give all that credit to Pauline. Pauline is very much our product development guru. She literally during the pandemic, you know, when everyone was shutting down, she's working from home with her kids at home and she was sometimes in the garage in her car making calls to co-packers vetting out kind of like what you do. I think you help a lot of brands find supply chain and figure out like how do you take something that's brewed in your home and scale that. And so that is what Pauline was doing during the pandemic. And that was done online, that was done via phone calls, that was done via a lot of emails, a lot of due diligence that requires a lot of, I would say, very detailed attention. And then also the ability to kind of think outside the box. I think what Pauline and I bring to the table is innovation to a set of a category that has not had a lot of innovation. So if you can believe it, tea is number two in the world, only preceded by water, but there's been no innovation. There was no nitrogen infusion, which you can find in coffee. There's no tea lattes. Like we went to Nielsen's and Spins and said, hey, tell us about the milk tea category or the tea latte category. And they're like, there is none. We don't know anything about it, but maybe we should consider starting to track you. And so we basically created the milk tea and tea latte category by having that conversation, by being proactive, saying like, hey, leaders, what do you think about this? That's category. Do you have data on it? No data. And so it's not that milk tea and tea lattes don't exist. They do exist in Asia, but they're imported, they're high in sugars, they're usually made of powders. One thing that makes us really, really stand out to consumers as well as to retailers is our sourcing. And when I talk about sourcing, it really extends to our single origin, loosely small family farm teas that are very unique. Our teas come from one place in the world and they have very unique profiles. For example, our black tea comes from a mountainside and our Misty River, very romantic conditions. So it has like these chocolate and cinnamon notes. And just like wine, teas also have notes. So when you think about single origin teas, while they'll talk about like, does it have like chocolate notes? Does it have vanilla notes? Where do these notes come from? It really is because it comes from a single place in the world. And so they do have very different profiles in their tea notes. and the flavors that you offer with our milk teas. And that's why we can say that our teas are much more like cafe-style milk teas because those flavor profiles are maybe typically what you might find in a cafe or very high-end tea shop. And so those are what people are gravitating for those unique flavors and cool flavors. Second would be we're powered by pea protein, so we have a proprietary own formulation, so that makes us be non-dairy. And the idea of what you mentioned, you're taking a global phenomenon that has over 6 million boba cups single use consumed a day, and then thinking about how do you actually bring that to the home and bring that into your pantry, bring that into your fridge in a sustainable manner. right? Something that could have a longer shelf life that allowed you to pull from your fridge or pantry anytime, anywhere. So you can go on a hike, you can go on a road trip. And that is what we were trying to do with our Twrl milk tea cans. And the idea of the boba toppings that came about was really because we wanted to have that customized experience at home. And what I love about our boba toppings, which most people might not know, is you can actually reseal them if you don't use them up. They're single-serve packets, but you can actually put them back in a jar, seal it up, a few days later, reheat them for the brown sugar bobas or the cognac, the crystal bobas are actually ready to eat already. In this day and age with recession and people clamping down, I just read an article about people going to private label and it's really because of cost savings. And so the milk teas and the boba toppings allow you to have that luxury of a milk tea, but at home and literally at a fraction of the cost.

11:59 Jessi: Yeah, that's amazing. Can you tell us a little bit more about the consumers kind of prompting you to do the boba and then also what that looked like to develop? Because I love that you can, you have these single serve pouches. That's so cool. I've never seen something like that. Like it's just so, so easy. Can you talk about that process? And if there's any story, anything surrounding of like, okay, let's, let's add something, add another product line. That's a big decision. And I'm curious about the thinking that was involved.

12:25 Olivia: Yeah. So I mentioned that Pauline and I both come from a marketing background. So the marketing background really stems from, you know, there's a kind of a Porter's five that you can learn from when you go to grad school for MBA, but it's like, you know, consumers, competition, you know, channel all those different avenues. And when I think about customers, it's really trying to understand who they are, what their mindset is, do you have a pulse on what they want and need? And one easy way is to do surveys. So we were really, really fortunate in the early part of our journey was that we had the pandemic. And the pandemic, people were really hungry for things to do. So Pauline sent out a lot of surveys. She held a lot of focus groups. People were actually hungry to do this type of activity, if you could believe it. Now, probably maybe not as much. But at that time, when we were launching, People were like, oh yeah, you want to talk milk tea? You want to talk bubble milk tea? And our Hojicha and our Nitro Infusion actually came from a customer suggestion from a focus group. Actually, these weren't even customers. These were just people that were interested in this concept of interested in actually giving feedback. The boba toppings, actually, we did a lot of serving and we decided not to launch bobas in the drinks because most people didn't want the extra calories. That was one. The two was the idea of having something in a drink over like a year or a year and a half didn't really seem to resonate as well with consumers and so they wanted something separate. So we actually made that conscious decision to really solidify Twrl Milk Tea as a milk tea brand and to dominate that category. And then a year later, launch Boba Toppings. So that's kind of what we how we envisioned how we use customer feedback.

14:10 Jessi: Yeah. Oh, that's that's really interesting. I'm wondering if you can walk us through some of your current retailers. I know you've had some recent retail launches, which I'd love for you to share. And then we can talk more about those. But tell us about the retailers that you're in right now.

14:21 Olivia: So we currently are online, first of all, is on our website and on Amazon. So that's serve nationwide. We are then working with distributors to go through and service like the Texas market with Central Market. We have the Northeast with Wegmans. And then in Mid-Atlanta, we have like Mom's Organic. And then we have a number of really amazing independents. We are based in the Bay Area, so we can be found in Gus's Market, Berkeley Bowl, Leonardi's, Molly Stone's, Andronico's. We have these wonderful independent retailers that are some smaller stores like Sagona's, like two, but have a very, very loyal following and that are very great about identifying what's in trend and what consumers really want and care about and are also willing to pay for. And so I really have to applaud those independent retailers. When we first launched, they really just were like, yeah, in a heartbeat took us and really have stuck with us, to be honest. And so when I think about what to share with other brands that are thinking about entering, I do think that those independent retailers are very key. Whether or not you can get their buy-in and do they recognize that importance because they also get pitched to a lot. But I think if you can win those independent retailers, to this day, there are retailers that I brought on myself, I still support. And you'll see me post that on social media where I'm going to go support Sagona's Fall Fest myself because they've been with us since the beginning. And so we're doing Andronica's Market Find. I'm also going to be at that event. And it's really because it's my way of saying thank you. Thank you for being with us from the beginning. And if I can, and I have the time, I'm going to do those events myself.

16:03 Jessi: Yeah. Yeah. That's really cool. I believe you have a launch coming up as well at the end of this month, right? Oh, I do, I do. Sorry.

16:09 Olivia: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. So that's a really big launch for our small company. We are launching nationwide into all 400 sprouts and it will be for our brown sugar boba toppings. And so it's going to happen on October 30th. We will be in the tea set. So please, please go and buy a boba box, which has packets of six inside and hand them out for Halloween. Be the coolest house on the block and hand out boba Don't hand out candy, but hand out boba packets. And you'll be the house that everyone's like, did you get boba? Did you get boba? Did you get boba? And that you will be that house.

16:45 Jessi: Oh, I love that. That's such a great idea. Can you tell us a little bit about applying to Sprouts? Like when did you submit? And then also because I know you're so diligent about data and thinking through those pieces like how did you incorporate you know data from your independence and when did that play into when you applied to Sprout so that you had good information to them. I'm curious about the whole process with Sprouts.

17:06 Olivia: Yeah. So Sprouts has been a key retailer that we've wanted to work with, as well as we have other retailers that we also value as well. And the reason we're really interested in Sprouts is because they have a consumer that really cares about ingredients. They care about the items that is in their household, in their baskets. They care about that origin story of single origin, small family farms. They also like non-dairy options. And so that consumer was somebody we knew we want to start from the get-go. And When we approached, I met them at BevNet, to be honest, and they were on stage, and we had just won Best Beverage. And so we hit it off and chatted and started that conversation. So they knew who we were. And like everyone else, we went through their portal. We applied through their portal. That's what the guy told me to do. That's what I did. and we submitted. And then through our distributor, we actually had additional conversations about whether or not this would be a good fit. And so it did go through that distributor conversation. So that was a big point for us. I do think that it helped to be at Expo West I think that visibility helped for them to see that we were a legitimate company. It was our second time doing Expo West. We had also done Expo East. So those are things that I have heard from retailers themselves saying, like, you know, the first time they see you, they're not sure. Maybe the third time, right? And so I do think there's some truth to that, like being a company that has been around, that you're here to stay. I think we have also gotten a lot of notable press. Fetch Out News. We also have the Food Network and Bon Appetit. I think all of these press sightings are very, very much adding to your legitimacy as a brand, whether or not you have credence in trade publications, in the trade. So it's not just consumers saying like, yes, we like you guys, but you need to have outside validation. And that helps with having best beverage. It helps with having an Expo West like next to the award. And so those are the things that I think helped us get into Sprouts. And then Pauline and I do come from a fairly strong marketing background. So Pauline, 20 plus years in food and packaging. So we can talk articulately about why does our product do well alone without us in the stores. Obviously, we cannot be in all 400 stores. Does the product convey what we are? And so if you look at our cans, we have like a leaf motif. We call out plant-based because it is a milk tea with our names, but it is plant-based. So just like different details that really convey what we are about. And those are things that we communicated. We also came with a fairly strong marketing campaign of I come from a beauty background. So when you launch beauty products, beauty is the most competitive category that you can be in. And so when you launch a product, there is a full frontal campaign that happens from the product side, from the press side, from the event side, from the PR side. So all of those aspects, we actually come to market with a plan and we communicate that to our buyer. And so those are details that allow us to share with the buyer. And I think you were touched on earlier is do you share data? We do share data. We share what is our top SKUs? What do we recommend that they go in with a set? And we also have tough conversations like what was the price point? Where are you going to be pricing us? And we will have conversations like we don't think that's the right price point. I know some people are afraid to have that conversation because they're afraid to lose the deal. I actually don't think that's the right way to do it. I think you have to have very early on like, what is my SRP going to be? Why do you want that SRP? Why that cost of goods? I'm very vocal about it. And I think it's because I'm here to be a partner to the retailer to win. Right? Like our goal together is to have the right price point to drive the right sales. But we all have to be in it. Everyone is in it together as a pie. We all have to execute concurrently. And our way to execute is to provide data saying like, we think this price point will sell. We've been selling at this price point. We supported it and it works. You know, please work with us with this.

21:22 Jessi: Yeah, that's all incredibly helpful for you to walk through. So thank you. That's, that's very helpful. And it's so exciting with sprouts. Oh, my gosh, I'm just I'm just so excited as well.

21:29 Olivia: I know. I know. My first the first person I told was my dad. All the time.

21:36 Jessi: Oh, that's so cool. I bet he was so excited.

21:40 Olivia: Yes, we had a launch party. And if you see there's an older gentleman, some of the photos, that's my dad.

21:45 Jessi: Oh, that's amazing.

21:46 Olivia: We just threw a launch party last Thursday to really just celebrate our boba toppings as desserts. So we partnered with a local tea shop called Crown and Crumpet where they created their French trained chef created boba inspired desserts. So we had, you know, like boba s'mores, we had boba tarts. And it really allowed just like, you know, 80 plus people that were consumers, investors, friends, really come together and just celebrate our launch and just see what is possible. We have a zine that you can download from our website that has all these recipes. And so, you know, please everyone head over to our website for these great recipes that actually Pauline and I created in my kitchen. And we took all the photographs and it was designed, the cover was designed with a Times America amazing artist named Felicia Liang. And she took our creations that we created in our home and then made them into beautiful, beautiful drawings. And so we really are excited to have everyone just download these recipes and use them for the holidays, for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas.

22:50 Jessi: Yeah. Oh, amazing. I'll make sure to link that in the show notes so that folks can head right there. Cause that, that sounds amazing.

22:57 Olivia: It was my idea, but Pauline and Felicia really took it to life where they have like waffles. Just really fun. And so those are the things that I would say, like we bring to the table that are a little bit different. from other brands. We really think through about the experience. And I think when we were planning this, we planned this lunch party for the last two months. I told Pauline, we're really, we're both moms. I said, let's take our birthday planning skills and like take it to the 10th level. And this is what this party was. It was like a birthday party for our friend's lunch, but on steroids.
Jessi: That's amazing. I love that you bring the like multifold marketing approach to everything you're thinking through and thinking about how to partner really with the retail. All of that is so important. And I'm wondering on like press as well, because you've gotten so much amazing press, if you have any tips or can share a little bit about your experience with the press, specifically applying for awards. And then also, I would love if you could tell us about your New York Times Square experience recently as well, but would love to learn more about your interactions with the press.
Olivia: Yeah, so we do all our own press outreach. We have never used an agency for any of that outreach that we got, and they were all organic, non-paid. So that was really, really great. I think what worked well with us, similar to how you approach retailers, is that storytelling about the origin story, about what makes you unique as founders. What are you offering as a product? At the end of the day, the product has to taste great. I think you cannot escape any of that. The writers, just like the buyers, they're inundated with product. So I do think that that is… You just need to be really honest with yourself. Do you have a product that is resonating with retailers? Do you have a product that is resonating with press? Because if you don't, and even customers, I think early in our world, we first launched online. But as soon as the world opened up, we launched February 2021. And then in July of 2021, when the world was opening up for the pandemic, we started going into retailer. But we also started doing pop-ups right away. We did a number of events in person. And through that, You get a lot of feedback. There's no denying someone's first reaction to your product, the first sip, the first bite. Some people cannot hide their immediate reaction, even if you're the founder. There may be people who might be like, oh, it's okay. through those conversations, you can be like, oh, okay, what did you like about that flavor? What did you think? So in a case in point, when we first launched our black, people were like, oh, I can brew that at home. I can brew, but I'll buy your hojicha or buy your jasmine pour, but your black, I can make that at home. And so through that, I realized I was like, oh, I did need to communicate. This black was not your typical black. It was a very special varietal of tea that's from one place in the world that's because it's single origin black. So that helps your narrative and your storytelling. And so those details that you can extrapolate through interaction with consumers, they also help your storytelling for the press, because press will be like, maybe they'll write you off like, oh, this is just another black tea, just like a lift in like, just normal, nothing special. But through my own interactions, through pop-ups, through events with consumers. Every time I go to, I still stock 20 some stores myself, if you don't believe it's a little bit crazy. But I do it because I do it on the weekends, you know, in my spare time. I do it because I love seeing the reactions of consumers. I love talking with them. I like understanding, like, where do they shop? Do they live around here? Where are they from? All those things of where, why, and how. Those all feed back into how you could be a better storyteller. And I would say there's a lot of founders that maybe are introverted, right? Or maybe that is not their wheelhouse. And so if that is not your wheelhouse, then that's when you need to outsource some of that. Or you need to have someone on your team that can give you that honest feedback back. I think just as any founder, anybody who's working, sometimes you're surrounded by yes people. And so you want to make sure you deviate from that. You're not just in that yes camp. You want to hear, like, I don't know about that. I'm not sure about that. Why did you do it that way? Why didn't you think about this? And that part, I would say Pauline is very open to that feedback because she does a lot of our product development. Because I think she naturally is curious about new trends and new tastes. She does a lot of traveling. She's actually going to, for example, Toronto today. And so my first task to her was like, go check out these… I have a list of few retailers and I said, go see what's on trend. Go see what's in there. And so we do those things because we are already in that mindset of really very, just very curious. about what is going to sell, what is going to work. And it does need to resonate with our own values. I would say one thing that we're really strong at Twrl is we did additional focus groups. So when I talk about at the beginning of our journey, we did focus groups, we actually just recently redid a focus group for our top customers. where we interviewed them. I personally interviewed a number of them to really see whether or not we were on pulse with the same values that we started with. And what I mean by that is, as you grow a company, you can think like, Oh, this is well, we should just do it because I believe in it. And that can be true, right? Like you can still run that business. But I wanted to have our team be more methodical, have a test to be like, is what we're thinking and the way we're valuing our values and what we're doing is our silver flux even our top customers. Because as most of us have heard, 20% of your business comes from, most of your business comes from 20% of your customers. And so for me, we looked at that top 20% of the customers and did interviews again. So that type of mythology, I don't think many businesses are doing. They're not checking in. When you go to scale, you might have to change a lot of things. And so we have our own brands that we love, and then suddenly you're like, oh, something's off. about their sugars or something's off about their ingredients. And it's because they change things. And so that evolution of the company, I have always said we need to have a pulse on the customer. Are we in line with what they want? Are we in line with what we want? Are we both aligned? And that is when I think the company will really be successful.

29:08 Jessi: Yeah, that's very helpful to hear how you think through that and are so methodical about it. And like you said, I don't know that a lot of people approach it like that. So that's I think that's very helpful and very helpful as you scale, as you mentioned, and changes have to be made to be in on the pulse of what's going on. Can you tell us a little bit about New York Times Square, how that came about? Tell us more.

29:30 Olivia: Yeah, so that really came about, I was doing a personal vacation with my family to the East Coast. And we were also visiting Yale University that we had just launched out. We were going to be launching at Wegmans soon. So I kind of coupled my own personal with work trips. And we were doing a number of events in New York. And when I was in Times Square, I was like, wait, actually, I think we can advertise here. I think we can do this." And so we pulled together literally in like a night, like the videos we wanted, found the number and we just went and advertised. I put out a call to two Wharton classmates or actually one, one Wharton classmate, my good friend Caroline, who's the co-founder of Overplay. And I was like, Caroline, I need someone to help fill me. I just want come. And she's like, no problem. And then she got my other classmate Vatsa to come. And he was like, Oh, is Olivia in town? I'm like, yeah, like we're all and so they all came and just helped me film. And so we were on for a few like different segments. And we just picked one. I was actually flying out that day back to California. And so it was really a nutty experience. But I think what I share with other founders is take opportunity where when you see it, right, it's good to be nimble in that situation. And it turned out to be such a magical experience, not for the only for the brand, but also a bonding experience with my Wharton classmates. to have this moment. And then we share this moment with our like, we have a couple hundred WhatsApp group of us doing this. And so why it really stemmed was because we did want to celebrate this big foray into the Northeast, right? It was a big, big launch for us as well. And we're always trying to think of different things to do. Like, you don't want to do what everyone else is doing. You want to do what's different. And so just being out and about and seeing like, Oh, could this work? I come from beauty, so beauty was always into outdoor ads. I remember walking the subways of Shanghai, for example, and be like, okay, this seems like a better outdoor ad for the subway line. These would be better doors. This had foot traffic movement. And so the minute I spotted Times Square, I was like, this is a no-brainer. So much foot traffic everywhere. It's a huge screen. Why not do it? And that is maybe because of my beauty background. I just thought like, of course we should do this.

31:48 Jessi: Yeah, that's so cool. It seems like you're really good at creating moments too with events and thinking through unique moments to create, celebrate, bring people together. So I really, I really love that.

31:59 Olivia: I think it's really stemming from there is a hunger for all of us to be connected. And at the end of the day, food is a great connection for all of us. Food has such reminders of our own childhood smells and drinks and all the things that we grew up with. And then when you think about how do you want to celebrate a milestone, usually it's centered around some type of food, whether at home, at a restaurant. And so for us, Thinking about extension is a natural evolution of what we are doing in our marketing as Toral as a brand. Because I think inherently, Pauly and I both love to entertain ourselves. We love sharing our experiences. We have this new… Not new, to be honest, but we have a DIY boba tasting. And so it basically like a little, we have a little list of like, here's the cups you need to buy. Here are the jars you could do. Here's the sign that actually shows people how to do a DIY boba at home. And so we've been sending that out to people. People have been asking us, can you just send me the whole list? Like I was like, Oh, yeah, yeah. So we'll have to create a blog post for that. Because there is like a such a hunger for it.

33:04 Jessi: Yeah. Oh, that's awesome. I'm also wondering, you mentioned some pop-ups. Can you talk about your experience with pop-up grocer? How did that go? We've seen a lot of people in our community debating whether to do a pop-up grocer experience. And so I'm really curious about your experience.

33:18 Olivia: Yeah. So we really love what Pop-Up Grocer is doing in terms of highlighting new brands, creating a beautiful, beautiful space where it's curated, it's in a great location. And they've also done additional partnerships with other, for example, Nordstrom's. And so I think that that just ended for the last summer. But I went to see them. I thought they were beautifully executed, very in line with how we would do an event and how we would do a pop-up. And so when we were launching into the Northeast with Wegmans, we also wanted to kind of like partner with pop-up brochure and kind of augment our awareness and our brand building. So we basically treated it as an extension of our Wegmans launch, to be honest, and couple that together. So that was kind of like a little bit of our logic. But at the end of the day, it's stemmed from we do think that they do things beautifully. They also have very cool products that probably you are a lot of consumers would be curious about. And I do think that they do a good job supporting brands like ourselves in amplifying what we are. To celebrate our launch, we currently… I think by the time this airs, it'll be over, but we did do a giveaway where we partnered with a number of other brands and just to amplify that we're all at Pop-Up Grocery. We did a $150 gift card to Pop-Up Grocery to support that launch. And so those are just small ways to kind of engage. And it also gives us an ability to work with other brands that maybe aren't near us or even in retailers with us. That part is really, really fun.

34:47 Jessi: I believe you also did a test with Costco, and I love your approach of testing things and trying things. And so I'm wondering about your experience with Costco. How did that test go? And I'm curious what you learned that other people might be able to take away.

35:01 Olivia: Yeah, we had a phenomenal engagement with Costco. Pauline and I are both actually like, you know, just like we shop at Whole Foods and Sprouts and other, we also shop at Costco. And so we were approached from them from Expo West. So that lead came in from Expo West, met the buyer there, and we started a conversation. And it moved fairly quickly, to be honest. At that time, we had launched in February 2021. We launched into Costco in June of 2022, so just a few months later and just really like two, three months after Expo. So it moved fairly fast. And at that time, we were not in Southern California. We chose one region of Southern California, which also had Hawaii. And the reason we chose that was because we really weren't saturated in Southern California. We're mainly based in the Bay Area at that time. And that was a way for why logic was this. One is we're interested in big box. We know that it's a long term viability for our company, just because it offers great scale, it has a great brand, and they're really, really great to work with as a business partner. Those were my simple reasons. And the last one was we weren't in LA yet. So why not try a test? And what I mean by a test is I wanted to stress test our team. We're a really small team. It's mainly Pauline and I, and we've had like two or three contractors. But could we organize ourselves and create what I call SOPs, the systems of process? Could we create and understand where would we have holes if we had to support such a large retailer with pallets and pallets of product? And that's where I think a lot of companies are not thinking through like, oh, I'll launch a Costco, I'll launch this. But it's like, what is your purpose? I tell my own team, I even talked to Pauline about it. It's like, what did we want out of the outcome of that call? What do I want out of the outcome of this journey? If you don't know what the outcome is, you should not do it. That is my philosophy because we are such limited time, right? Like if I have such limited time, like where do you want to spend your time? So I knew my outcome. I wanted to stress test the company. I wanted to understand how did it work to sell at Costco? What do I need to do well? And so we learned a lot. It did very, very well and the buyer wants to still work with us. And we basically said, we still love working with you. We are going to be focused on natural retailers like Whole Foods and Sprouts and Wegmans and all of these to really give them that support. But we all do understand long term we will be working together because they're just a great, they're really great retailer to work with. They're really good at payment. And so those are kind of like the things I think about, about how to go about retail.

37:35 Jessi: Yeah. Yeah. That's very helpful to hear that positive experience and just how you approached it and how you approach a lot of these opportunities. I've asked a lot of different guests this and so I'm curious about your perspective as well. Are there any other like guiding questions that you ask yourself with tough decisions? You just gave us one and I'm curious if there's any other philosophies or things that you fall back on when you're like, what do I do now? How do I make this hard choice or this big choice?

38:02 Olivia: We've actually turned down a lot of distribution. A lot of retailers that probably people would love to be in and they were really hard decisions because who wants to turn down revenue? I think how I go about the decision tree with Pauline and Rachel, who's our head of ops, is we think can we support the retailers? Is it the right timing for our team? Is it where we really want to be spending our energy? Not because it's not a great retailer. They're all great retailers. I think they all service consumers in a market that we're not in. And they themselves are good buyers. For example, one retailer we turned down had I think 25 locations and was considered a very great natural chain retailer. And the reason we turned it down was it was in an area that we had not expanded to as much. And we felt that we wanted to delay that timing because we did want to focus on a few other retail launches that we had in the pipeline. So we made that conversation happen. And the retailer was amazing. The retailer basically said, when you're ready, come back, we'll put you back in. And that is amazing, right? That they said that they'd be basically waiting to wait for us versus the other way around where you're chasing them down and wondering whether or not they'll take you. And so that part, I think, heartened us in that conversation. And I would encourage other brands to also try to really know you don't have to take every opportunity and you probably shouldn't, right?

39:37 Jessi: Yeah, yeah, no, that's super helpful. And as we wrap up, what's coming up next? What do you have going on that's coming up soon that people should know about? We'll talk about specific links to find you and everything, but I'm wondering if there's any events or other other things coming up that you want to shout out in addition to the Sprouts launch, because I love your idea of Boba for Halloween. I think everyone should do that. So what else is going on?

40:03 Olivia: Right after the holidays of Halloween, Christmas is happening. So we definitely think that the boba should be your stocking stuffers. So that's one. So if you want to be the most popular auntie or uncle or mom or dad, you know, we definitely recommend people putting the stocking, the bobas in their stocking to the perfect size. That's one. We also have a launch party or a holiday party that's coming up on December 6 in San Francisco. and head to our website or Instagram. We're going to be launching information about that soon. That is going to be celebrating another nationwide launch for another retailer. And that's for all our drinks. And we do have another launch that's going to follow at Sprouts And so we'll have a little bit more information about that. I just got that information today. So a lot of breaking news on our end. And we really, really are excited to just Twrl into these retailers, Twrl into people's homes, into their pantries, onto their countertops. onto their bike rides. And so we're really, really grateful for this opportunity just to share a little bit about how we think about things, how we go to market, what works well for us, and what we're trying to do. We're really just two moms, two really good friends and daughter of immigrants that are trying to change what's in your pantry, what's in your fridge with drinks and boba toppings that we grew up with. For us, we're just moms, we care about the next generation. I think because we're both moms, we really do think about the future, right? Like where our kids, that world that our kids will live in, the world that our grandkids will live in. And that is coupled along with, you know, where is the sourcing going to come from? Where is the production is going to come from? Where are all these things that are going to feed the future generations? And along that side, you know, we joke, we wonder which one of our kids is going to take over Toral Milk Tea. We want this brand to live for generations to come. And so building a business that is incorporating the sustainability aspects, because we care about, you know, the future generations, but also like, we wonder, like, can this be, this is a brand that will live forever? You know, we want it to be the next Coke. We want Tea Latte to be as synonymous with Toral, the same that Frappuccinos are synonymous with Starbucks. And so those are kind of like the goals that we think about that sustainability aspect. It's not just about the world and the consumptions, but it's all the sustainability of Twrl. And so we hope that that resonates with others and if it does, like give us a Twrl.

42:33 Jessi: I love it. And I believe in case we have any investors or people that know investors listening, I believe you're going to be fundraising soon. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

42:41 Olivia: Thank you for the opportunity to share. So yes, we're going to be doing a round, our first angel and seed round. And this is really to just kind of fuel this rocket ship that Twrl is on. We have a lot of launches, we've been a completely bootstrapped two person team, really for the last two and a half years. And we're looking to expand our team with a key few hires as well as really just to support these retailers. We've been a very, very capital efficient team. I would say women are the least funded of all companies. And most people agree that when women come to market, they have a full fledged product, full distribution and fully tested and baked. And I would say Twrl is no different. We have taken kind of our mom abilities to multitask, to really be detailed oriented. And we have created Twrl Milk Tea with a full fledge of six gigs in full distribution vetted with trade awards and press releases. We know what to do. I have a Wharton Lauder MBA in international relations as well as marketing. Pauline is 20 plus years in CPG. She has an MFA. And so we come with that experience and that passion to bring Twrl to life. And we think that we're ready for that next step of taking our first angel and seed round investors.

44:30 Jessi: That's very exciting. Is the best way to connect with you on LinkedIn? Is that because I'll link your LinkedIn in the show notes. And then I encourage everyone to go to the website. I will link the zine that you mentioned specifically for sure. And then also go to Twrl milk tea and Twrl is t w r l milk tea dot com and check out the beautiful website. It's gorgeous. Is there any other places people should follow you or connect with you?

44:34 Olivia: And we'd love people to connect with us on LinkedIn. Follow us on LinkedIn at Twrlmulti.com. Connect with me personally at O-L-I underscore C-H-E-N. And we would love people to share and tell people about our story. One fun story that most people might not know is about our name. Twrl really came about because an emperor was walking through a garden and a leaf Twrled into his cup. And so that was the beginning of brew tea. So we love puns that Twrl. So we love to say that our brand is seep in history and we're Twrling in excitement. And so those are things that we hope that people, when they think about us, that they're going to be Twrling in excitement about all of us in all these retailers and in people's homes. Yeah.

45:21 Jessi: Oh, amazing. As a tea lover and a boba lover, I love everything about your brand. And hearing more today was just incredible. So thank you so much for sharing with us, Olivia, and taking the time to just share. And I'm sure that a lot of people gain a lot of insights from hearing from you. So thank you so much. I encourage everyone to go check out the website, go to Sprout, support Twrl, and just really excited for what's to come. But thank you so much for being here.

45:45 Olivia: Thank you so much.

45:51 Jessi: If you enjoyed today's episode, the best way you can say thank you is by leaving a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We seriously appreciate it so much, and it helps new people find the show. I'm Jessi Freitag, your host and producer. I'd love to connect with you on LinkedIn, or you can reach out anytime to podcast at startupcbg.com with your feedback, ideas, or just to say hi. Special thanks to our podcast assistant, Stephanie Roberts, Also, be sure to check out more free resources from Startup CPG, our Slack community, webinars, databases, the blog, the magazine, virtual and in-person events, and more. All available at StartupCPG.com. Our intro and outro music for today's episode is by the Super Fantastics, the band of our Startup CPG founder, Daniel Scharff, which you can find on Spotify for more great tunes. On behalf of the whole team at Startup CPG, thank you so much for being here and see you next week.