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

How does a brand live on after its founders leave the company – especially one that was inspired by their family and their culture? That’s the question Vincent and Andrew Kitirattragarn have had to answer since their original appearance https://wondery.com/shows/how-i-built-this/episode/10386-dang-foods-vincent-and-andrew-kitirattragarn/ on How I Built This in January 2022. This week on How I Built This Lab, Vincent and Andrew share their aspirations for Dang Foods after a difficult and heartfelt departure. Plus, how they navigated changes in consumer demand post-pandemic and the resources that helped buoy their mental health in the face of consequential entrepreneurial decisions. This episode was produced by Carla Esteves with music by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by John Isabella with research by Carla Esteves. Our audio engineer was Neal Rauch. This episode is brought to you in part by Canva, the easy-to-use online design platform for presentations, social posts, videos, websites, and more. Start designing today at Canva https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.canva.com/for-teams/features/brand/?utm_medium=display&utm_source=audio&utm_campaign=us_en_all_free_bra_consideration_2023wwydth2_na&utm_term=Wondery&utm_content=Broad__;!! Iwwt! QqxHLNtUdpIIxw_krrv7MGmnfzwbBOrZD_G9svhEPDTxFavPcc1bbAOKSfMgNFRuyum5kSUDDOm6HzG0$ – the home for every brand. You can follow HIBT on X https://twitter.com/HowIBuiltThis & Instagram https://www.instagram.com/howibuiltthis, and email us at [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Guy Raz?

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• 0:46Guy Raz?

  build the prototype, analyze the market, maybe even come up with the idea, what separates the people who actually build something from everyone else? I don't have a clean answer yet, so I've been sitting with it with Claude. There's hope in hard questions. Ask yours at claude.ai/hibt. We get support from U.S. Bank. A question I love asking founders. What's the one decision you almost didn't make? The one that changed everything? Because it's never the obvious stuff. It's never, I decided to start a company. It's the small, boring, Tuesday afternoon decision you barely remember making until you realize it's the reason everything after it either worked or didn't.

• 1:32Guy Raz?

  Say you're 18 months in. Business is growing. You've got expenses coming from six directions. Gas for the van, office supplies, your phone bill, team lunches that are actually client meetings, and you're putting it all on whatever card you grabbed in year one. You're not thinking about it. Why would you? You've got bigger problems. But here's the thing. Path A, you keep going like that. End of the year, you're sorting through statements, trying to figure out what went where. You've left hundreds, maybe thousands, on the table in rewards you never earned, money that could have gone back into the business. Path B, you pause and get the US Bank Triple Cash Rewards Visa Business Card. Now, you're earning 3% cash back

• 2:16Guy Raz?

  on gas and EV charging, office supply stores, cellphone service, and restaurants. You pick up an extra $750 cash back as a bonus. And you've got a low APR on purchases and balance transfers for 12 months while you're scaling. Same business, same expenses, two completely different outcomes based on one small decision. Visit usbank.com/business to learn more. The creditor and issuer of this card is US Bank National Association, pursuant to a license from Visa USA, Inc. Some restrictions apply. If you travel often, you'll want to hear about this unprecedented offer. For the first time ever,

• 3:00Guy Raz?

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• 3:45Guy Raz?

  or bring a guest to the Delta Sky Club. Make every trip feel more rewarding with the car that upgrades your travel. Apply today at delta.com/cardsocial. Offer ends November 4, 2026. Minimum spending requirements and terms apply. Flights are fulfilled as flight certificates valid for Delta Comfort or Delta Maine to select domestic destinations. Book 21-plus days in advance. Up to $80 per person and taxes and fees apply. Other restrictions apply. When I pull up to a gas pump to fill my car, I'm not thinking about chemistry or engineering. I'm thinking about getting in, filling up, and getting on with my day. And it reminds me a little bit of the founders I talked to on this show, because the best

• 4:27Guy Raz?

  ones obsess over things their customers will never see. Tiny details, invisible improvements, relentless iteration. And not because anyone's watching, but because it makes the product better. That's what the mobile brand does. It engineers fuel the same way great founders engineer their products. Mobile Supreme Plus Premium Gas helps keep engines three times cleaner, which can mean better performance and improved gas mileage. It's for people who care about what's under the hood, even if they never see it. Three times cleaner compared to mobile regular gas in port fuel-injected engines. Actual results may vary. Visit mobilefuels.com for details.

• 5:12Guy Raz?

  Hey, everyone. You know, every time I run into a How I Built This fan, the first thing they want to do is tell me about their favorite episode, which is so awesome. So now I want to share your favorite episode with the millions of people who listen to this show. Episodes they might not have heard or might want to hear again. So here's what I want you to do. Grab your smartphone and record a short memo, short, like, less than 30 seconds, and tell us your name. Where do you live and which episode is your favorite and why you loved it? So for example, I might say, hey, it's Guy Raz here in San Francisco. And my favorite episode of the show is the one about Hamdi, Lakaya and Chobani,

• 5:52Guy Raz?

  because I learned so much about how to just push through when nothing seems to be working out. And it gave me a whole new perspective on being resilient. So that's it, something like that, you know? And by the way, that's not my favorite episode. I love them all equally. Anyway, once you're done with the recording, email or message it to us at [email protected] and we'll share your favorites right here in the ad breaks in future episodes. Thanks so much. You guys are the best.

• 6:25Guy Raz?

  Hello, everyone, and welcome to How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz. So as you all know, How I Built This is a show that celebrates mistakes. In fact, I think of this show as a kind of a Yellow Pages, as a directory of mistakes. And the idea is that by listening to the amazing stories of founders and some of the mistakes they made along the way, you can learn how to avoid them yourself. Well, back in January 2022, we did an episode on a brand called Dang Foods. It was started by two brothers, Vincent and Andrew Kiderotrigar. And if you haven't heard it, it's worth your time. You can scroll back in the podcast queue to find it, or just search Dang Foods in your podcast app.

• 7:07Guy Raz?

  Anyway, Vincent and Andrew have family roots in Thailand, and they wanted to bring Asian-inspired snacks to grocery stores. They built Dang into a pretty impressive brand to a point where you could find their rice crackers and energy bars and coconut chips at Whole Foods and Target and Walmart. But unfortunately, the business ran into trouble, and a lot of it had to do with the pandemic. The brothers were faced with a series of difficult choices. Try to sell it, try to save it, or declare bankruptcy. Both Vincent and Andrew agreed to come back on to the show to talk about what happened and why. It was a really courageous thing to do. Most of us don't like talking

• 7:50Guy Raz?

  about failure or setbacks, but when we do, we can help ourselves and help others understand the value and lessons of those setbacks. When the pandemic hit, Vincent and Andrew had to navigate huge changes in consumer demand and then a global supply chain crisis.

• 8:09Speaker 01

  I remember thinking with Andrew, like, we really came to the conclusion that it was an existential crisis for the business.

• 8:16Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 8:17Speaker 01

  Because two of our three product lines are imported from Thailand. And so when your cost of goods, the freight, you know, goes from 5% to 30%, that's a big increase.

• 8:29Guy Raz?

  Wow. And what, I mean, and this was all COVID related? It was just the backlog of shipping? Is that how it was explained to you?

• 8:37Speaker 01

  My understanding, it was a supply and demand issue. So people were staying at home and they wanted to buy stuff for their house. And so, demand for imported goods increased dramatically and there wasn't enough containers to go around.

• 8:51Guy Raz?

  I remember when we had you on the show, and everybody listening to this should go back and listen to it because it is an awesome story about how you guys started this company and you guys were cooking in kitchens. Anyway, even when you were on the show, you were not a massive company, but you had managed to create a pretty, you know, significant brand. If you went into any Whole Foods, you would see DANG, you would see that label on coconut chips and on rice crackers. And you still do in many Whole Foods. But at the time we spoke, there were challenges. You were, not just the shipping challenges, but you You guys started to see some challenges with the business.

• 9:36Guy Raz?

  What was, what was happening at the time?

• 9:38Speaker 01

  So going back to 2019, I remember we'd just launched our dang bar. It was a, it was a keto bar with Asian flavors and ingredients. And we had launched it with Whole Foods in 2019. The first full year was great, became our number one product line really quickly.

• 9:55Guy Raz?

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

• 10:11Speaker 01

  At the time, there were no keto bars on the market. We're like, wow, this is such a big opportunity. So we raced to develop it and partnered with Whole Foods to launch it nationwide. And it did great. Like it was our, gonna be our driver of growth in 2020 and beyond. But when COVID hit and people were sheltering in place, they stopped buying energy bars as much because it's a good on the go snack. And when you're staying at home, you just don't buy bars as much. So that line took a hit pretty immediately.

• 10:41Guy Raz?

  But was there an initial surge? I mean, I know with like Cliff Bar, for example, they were flying off the shelves when COVID hit because people are stockpiling food. So was there an initial spike?

• 10:51Speaker 01

  There was a small initial spike as people were panic buying. But, you know, as people settled into their new routines of staying at home and not going out to shop at grocery stores, we did see a huge impact on all of our products.

• 11:07Guy Raz?

  Cause you were doing coconut chips, which, which you had a few flavors, rice crackers, and you had a few flavors. And the energy bar showed incredible promise in 2019. It, it seemed like there was a world where that could dominate your, your sales in the future.

• 11:27Speaker 01

  That was the plan, right? And so, you know, with the energy bar market being as big as it was, we're like, hey, you know, we, we created this nice niche, we should continue growing it. And so. It was it was kind of heartbreaking to, you know, face reality when COVID hit and, you know, and notice that it's not going to grow into what we had hoped. And so that was just the first kind of multiple waves of challenges, I would say, the the immediate impacts of COVID on purchasing habits of snacks and bars. And then the second wave was this supply chain crisis that caused huge spikes in container prices.

• 12:08Guy Raz?

  So, all right, so all of a sudden, Andrew, freight costs skyrocket. The cost to ship your goods, you know, dramatically increase. So, I mean, presumably you had to raise prices, right?

• 12:25Speaker 01

  We did raise prices. There's just so much that you can raise. So with the container prices going up from 5K to 22K in one month, you can't increase your price on shelf by 400%.

• 12:42Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 12:42Speaker 01

  You just can't, you just can't do it. Like, it's just, you just need to stomach through it.

• 12:48Guy Raz?

  So let me just acknowledge, I, I, I know that this is still recent, what had, what has happened today, and I really appreciate you guys coming on to talk about it. I think it's really courageous, and I think it's also important, because as you know, this show is about, you know, it's, it's designed to be free business school, master class for, for anybody who wants to start a business or is thinking about it or is just inspired by it. And you guys built an inspiring business and brand, you know, and it's a great story of how you did it. But of course, great businesses, I mean, even ones that we've had on the show, don't always make it for a variety of reasons. COVID was

• 13:31Guy Raz?

  You know, a black swan event and had a huge impact on your business. I mean, you, you had to really cut costs, right, to just, just to stay in business, just to make sure that you could survive. Because you could only raise prices a certain amount before people would stop buying your product. But in order to stay alive, you had to probably do things like cut back on expenses, I gather.

• 13:56Speaker 02

  Guy, it was a matter of survival, right? And it was definitely one of the hardest things we had to do. The, the cuts to the marketing and the spend were, were easier. The layoffs were a lot harder and we needed to do it because we didn't have control in the near future over the revenue side.

• 14:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, when you, you know, when you're not profitable and not growing, it's, it's tough. I mean, the, the only options are to fundraise, right? Or look for acquirers. So, you know, we look for fundraising, but it wasn't coming. And, you know, we had to pivot to look for people to, people would be interested in merging us with another business or acquiring the business.

• 14:45Guy Raz?

  So I guess around March of 2022, you really started to look at your options

• 14:55Guy Raz?

  sort of with a, sort of a more urgent lens, right? So one, one option would be, can we find investors? So you, and did you guys go out and see if you could raise money?

• 15:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, we went to, I want to say five or six dozen potential investors.

• 15:13Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 15:13Speaker 01

  And spoke to them about, you know, the situation that we were in, that it was a, you know, that, that cost had skyrocketed and that we thought it was going to be a short-term thing.

• 15:25Speaker 01

  And that cost would come back down and then we'd end up being more profitable. But it's tough to fundraise when you're not growing and not profitable. And, yeah, it wasn't a, it wasn't an easy sell.

• 15:39Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 15:41Guy Raz?

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

• 15:53Speaker 02

  Guy, it was extremely hard. I remember talking with Vincent and we were discussing whether or not we wanted to approach our friends and like our colleagues about potentially putting in some money. And I told Vincent that I didn't want to go to my friends to do that. Like, I felt like the market was telling me something and I felt like it'd be misleading in my heart to ask them to put in more money when I maybe started to not, to not believe.

• 16:23Guy Raz?

  Yeah, I bet. And so when that didn't work, one other option is, of course, could you sell? Could you, could you find a buyer for the company? And what, what did you guys try to do?

• 16:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, we collectively got together with our board, had meetings and came out with a list of people that we're going to go after and who's going to talk to them, you know, brands and or, you know, organizations that would be interested in acquiring us. But the idea was, you know, we might not make sense as a standalone entity, but it does make sense as an add-on. Like, we spent 10 years building this brand that people understand and know and go back and look for. And, you know, if you already have a group that's operating a business, you can tack this on to it. And, you know, we had talked with probably another, you know, close to 100 brands.

• 17:14Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 17:14Speaker 01

  And a lot of them, you know, were interested. Some of them were worried about supply chain issues. And we actually ended up, you know, getting an offer, some offers, from, interestingly, these, you know, do you remember the, the kind of SPAC craze?

• 17:31Guy Raz?

  Oh, yes.

• 17:32Speaker 01

  There is like a whole craze of, you know, these public companies that would basically, entities that would go public and then look for an acquisition later on. And so there were quite a few of these in our space and we talked with them, but. In looking closely at those businesses, we were, it just, it didn't feel like a right fit.

• 17:54Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 17:55Speaker 01

  And nothing ended up making it past the finish line.

• 17:58Guy Raz?

  And, and you guys, what, what was your objective? I mean, you could have just wound down the business and, you know, declared bankruptcy. There's lots of things you could have done. I mean, you had raised money. I think you'd raised, I think about $10 million. But was your objective to at least try to get some money back to the original investors?

• 18:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. So the, you know, we raised a little above 10 million. And the goal was, you know, to try to make them whole or have that equity roll over into another entity. But, you know, ultimately, it's very tough to, I think, align incentives during mergers and these types of acquisitions. And so nothing really fit the bill.

• 18:43Speaker 02

  I think part of that too is like, we wanted this thing to live on. Like, somebody else take it and like, keep going with what we made. Doesn't have to be huge, but just keep going with it.

• 18:54Speaker 01

  You know, we'd spent this 10 years building this. It's named after our mom. It's very personal to us. And to see it disappear, I mean, you know, it felt to me like that would be like almost the loss of a loved one. Like, there's a, there was a definite grieving process when it came down to letting something like this go.

• 19:15Guy Raz?

  We're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, how a chance encounter at a holiday party reinvigorated Vincent to get back into the business of, well, building a business. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built This Lab.

• 19:38Guy Raz?

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• 20:22Guy Raz?

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• 21:35Guy Raz?

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• 22:20Guy Raz?

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• 23:06Guy Raz?

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• 23:51Guy Raz?

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• 24:28Guy Raz?

  Hello and welcome back to How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz and my guests today are the founders of the Asian-inspired snack food brand, Dang Foods. So I guess you guys did decide in the summer of 2022 to do the wind down option, right? Which, what did that mean? What did that mean you were gonna do? Andrew?

• 24:50Speaker 02

  What we decided to do is, with the board's permission, we stopped ordering inventory because we didn't see a path forward and that the supply chain at that time was not being alleviated. So we decided that we were gonna sell off our assets and have this time to try to sell the company while we sell off the inventory for nine months and ultimately return them on whatever cash is left to the creditors.

• 25:17Guy Raz?

  And how much inventory did you guys have at that time in the US?

• 25:22Speaker 02

  We had, the thing about that Vincent didn't mention is not only were the freight rates up, but the average time in port also spiked during that time from 50 days to 100 days, or seven weeks to 14 weeks.

• 25:40Guy Raz?

  Wow. Just because there wasn't enough manpower to move it out quickly?

• 25:44Speaker 02

  Yes. So it flowed, it didn't float, but in parts of 2021, we were really, really short. And then because we had to overorder towards the end of that, we started getting a huge surplus.

• 25:57Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 25:58Speaker 02

  So by, by the beginning of 2022, we had like nine months and we had a bunch of cash sitting in coconut chips and rice chips at our warehouse.

• 26:08Guy Raz?

  I cannot imagine how difficult this time was. I'm sure it's still even raw now, talking about it, you know, in late 2023. But how were you guys coping with, with it, you know, just personally, emotionally, you know, having to, for a variety of reasons, mainly because of the circumstances of the global pandemic, having to wind down this, this brand and business that you'd worked on for over 10 years at that point?

• 26:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I felt like I lost purpose. I felt like I lost a loved one. I felt like I let my team down. I remember going to the park and crying and then I also remember telling when I have to tell the team this, like just breaking down, like I couldn't hold it together and just crying as well. So for me, there were a lot of feelings of loss and grief.

• 27:06Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 27:07Speaker 01

  As if it were, you know, a part of my family.

• 27:10Guy Raz?

  Andrew, how about for you?

• 27:12Speaker 02

  Guy, I think this is why my brother and I were such a good team is because we're so different.

• 27:22Speaker 02

  I felt a huge sense of relief, huge. And one of the reasons why is because I felt like in the months leading up to the decision, including even on your show last time we were there, we had to wear somewhat of a mask in front of the public, in front of employees, in front of creditors, our friends and family. And in making this decision, I felt like we could start to take that mask off.

• 27:55Guy Raz?

  Yeah. And that you could start to move to the next chapter in your life, maybe. I'm wondering, Vincent, back to you.

• 28:06Guy Raz?

  Could I, you know, I, I'm feeling that sadness for sure and I, I really empathize with that. And I wonder how you, what helped you just emotionally cope, cope with it? How, what was helpful during that time?

• 28:27Speaker 01

  It was about, I'd say a three-month depression or depressed period. And I sought out a therapist during that time just to talk through these issues. I have a support group of other entrepreneurs and, you know, they were able to lend some perspective on lows that they had went through as well. But I also leaned on Andrew. I mean, Andrew was my rock during that time and he really helped, you know, keep, keep things together and keep a really positive perspective. You know, he kept reminding me that like, hey, this is just chapter one, you know? We learned so much from this and we're just going to put our learnings to work to us in the next chapter. And, you know, hearing things like that would, would keep me motivated.

• 29:10Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 29:12Speaker 01

  I've been going to therapy for like 10 years. It's like I've had much more time to process my feelings along the way, I think, than Vincent did. And that's why, I think that's why emotionally, I think I was more ready. And I wasn't as swayed, and maybe I should have been, maybe that's more human of Vincent. Like, maybe I should have been like that, maybe there's something missing, but um, I know I did emotionally feel prepared.

• 29:40Guy Raz?

  I guess in the midst of this, Vincent, you had heard of an opportunity. And it was with a, a small brand that, that was working on or making and selling direct to consumer frozen soup dumplings, Chinese soup dumplings. And you connected with them and, and basically started working with them.

• 30:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I sometimes get investment opportunities sent to me and I usually don't, don't pay them much mind. But one really caught my eye, which was, um, there's a restaurant in Seattle that had to shut down during COVID and they lost almost all their revenue and they pivoted to shipping frozen soup dumplings locally. And when word got out, you know, they got demand from other cities and started expanding to other cities. At the time it was, uh, X E J and now it's, it's Mila.

• 30:33Guy Raz?

  The name of the company is Mila.

• 30:35Speaker 01

  Mila, yeah. And when I studied abroad in Shanghai, uh, in college, you know, I had soup dumplings there. And when I tried these, I thought they tasted authentic, like exactly like I had in China.

• 30:47Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 30:49Speaker 01

  And, you know, it was a, a unique product because, uh, you know, it was, it came frozen raw and you had to steam it at home. But the result is a restaurant quality dumpling. And, uh, I was just, I was, I had to get involved. So I actually wrote a check and invested in the company back in 2021. And then towards the middle of 2022, uh, I got an update from the founders that, hey, you know, we're doing really well. We grew 500% uh, and we're next, we're looking at going into retail. And so I connected with them about the retail piece because I had been doing that for the last, you know, 10 years. And, um, I joined them at the end of 2022.

• 31:32Guy Raz?

  Wow. And up until the end of 2022, the idea was you would wind down the brand and sell the assets and then, you know, return as much as you could to the creditors. And that would be it. That would be the end of Dang. That was basically where you guys were headed?

• 31:51Speaker 02

  Yes, from a very, from a paper perspective, that made sense to sell like what you're describing makes sense. And Vincent and I also just wanted the brand to live on. So we say assets, but we were really selling the brand and everything so that that could live on with somebody else.

• 32:13Guy Raz?

  So you were looking for somebody to take on the, the brand name?

• 32:17Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 32:17Guy Raz?

  And maybe they could continue it. But, but so far up until, you know, that time, you had no luck. You could not find anybody.

• 32:24Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 32:25Guy Raz?

  Um, but I guess eventually you did. Vincent, you met somebody at a party who just happened to be, tell me the story.

• 32:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I went to a holiday party in December 2022 and it was an eighties themed party. And so I was wearing an Adidas tracksuit with, you know, a boombox in the style of Run DMC. And I saw someone else who had a similar outfit, also wearing an Adidas tracksuit. And so we started talking. We got around to, hey, what do we do? And I told him about Dang and, you know, I told him, oh, you know, we're winding it down. And he said, don't wind it down. Like it's a great brand, you know, maybe we'll buy it. And he happened to be the founder of Safe Catch, which imports seafood from Thailand. And so the more we started talking, we're like, okay, this could work. He already imports products from Thailand.

• 33:18Speaker 01

  He has a team over there. He knows our brand. He knows our customers. You know, let's, let's flush this out.

• 33:23Guy Raz?

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

• 33:39Speaker 01

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

• 34:06Guy Raz?

  And so Dang is still operating as the same, more or less the same brand with the same products, just now owned by somebody else.

• 34:15Speaker 01

  We're still on shelves at Whole Foods. We're still at Amazon. You know, they, we have calls with them and advise them on customers and new products and, you know, even hires. And yeah, they're, they're continuing to operate it. So I'm glad that, you know, our, our product at least is still available for those people that, that really love it. And I'm really proud that, you know, we're still, still around.

• 34:40Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 34:41Speaker 02

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

• 34:55Guy Raz?

  We're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, more on the future of Dang Foods and what's next for Andrew and Vincent. Stay with us. You're listening to How I Built This Lab.

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• 36:52Guy Raz?

  Hey, welcome back to How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz. Here's more of my conversation with Vincent and Andrew Kitchirachigan of Dang Foods. It's interesting, Andrew, obviously Vincent is now fully in, you know, to feed in with Mila, trying to turn that into a bigger brand. And Andrew, from what I gather, you are doing some consulting work, helping, you know, particularly helping other startups that need to wind down their businesses for a variety of reasons, kind of helping walk them through that process.

• 37:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's, it's interesting because when Vinny asked me to join Dang, I didn't have any food and beverage CPG experience. I just did it because it was a cool opportunity. I'm trying to help my brother and it would, it was going to be cool to do something together.

• 37:43Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 37:43Speaker 02

  Like, it could have been any industry that did better for the world. It could have been any industry. So I, I did a lot of thinking when I was there in my final years of Dang. I was like, oh, like, I don't know if this is my industry. This is where my passion is. I'm just helping out my brother because he needs the help and this is fun. And something happened the day in April that we made that decision to wind down. And it was a really tough day. For Vincent, and it was a tough day when we had to tell the employees what was going on and when I had to call the creditors, that was all tough.

• 38:25Speaker 02

  But I did feel all of a sudden rejuvenated and really engaged because I really wanted to tell people what was going on and I really wanted to let them know what our plan was and ideally give our employees some severance or give them a little package to stay with us or tell the investors who we had been keeping in the loop what was going on. Let the creditors know that it's a tough situation, that they might not get their money back, but we're trying everything we can and hopefully in nine months, we'll be able to give them back something.

• 38:57Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 38:58Speaker 02

  I really liked being on the hot spot and doing it. And I don't know if it's a passion, but it's something that's engaging during this process.

• 39:09Guy Raz?

  And, and basically, I mean, you can take your experience and, right, and help, help people kind of navigate it because I'm sure it's, for many people, it's traumatic.

• 39:21Speaker 02

  It's traumatic. Yeah. And it's, it's traumatic and I, I mean, I was, there's a couple of things that come to mind here. Vinny, I remember when we were having a hard time in 2021, 2022, I was like, Vinny, if we call this the dang Foods Company, it's going to be harder for us to make these decisions, especially as a fiduciary to the board. So I want to call this the ABC Company when things are going hard. I don't want to call this the dang Foods Company, which was named after our mother.

• 39:54Guy Raz?

  Hmm.

• 39:55Speaker 02

  And I think, I think others need help with that guidance. And remember Vincent was the one to really create this. He was the real creator in this and I came in to help scale it. And so what I learned from this and what I want to tell other people too is that I dang foods company, the entity failed, but we are not failures.

• 40:20Guy Raz?

  No question about it. I mean, I mean, here's the thing, right? Like how I built this is a show about brands and how they were built. And obviously it's a show about successful brands, but failure is, I mean, it's a tricky word, right? Because it feels deflating, but it can also be immensely valuable, incredibly valuable as a tool to help you prepare for the next journey, right? And so Vincent, I mean, I can't imagine how much you learned. What, tell me, can you talk about some of the things that you've brought with you to your new company that, I don't know, let's start with the things that you did right.

• 41:02Guy Raz?

  What are some of the things you did right at dang that worked and that you will continue to do?

• 41:07Speaker 01

  I would say, you know, focusing on the product at the very beginning is, is the most important. So making sure that you really understand your product and why people are buying it and who's buying it and when are they consuming it? And this is all kind of goes under this guise of product market fit. I think that's super important. And I think that's something that, you know, founders need to be obsessive about at the beginning because your success is ultimately going to depend on how much product market fit you have. So I would say that's the number one thing. And then, you know, I think making

• 41:49Speaker 01

  sure that as a company, you're, you're set up for that success. So, you know, now after 10 years, we understand that it's not just having a good product, but you actually have the operations team, you gotta have the finance team, you gotta have marketing team to really back it up. And so if you have one part that's working, but one part that isn't, it's not really going to add up.

• 42:13Guy Raz?

  And, and so how about you, Andrew? And what are some of the things that you, you, you guys did well at dang that, you know, you'll continue to kind of use, you know, in your, in your sort of professional career?

• 42:26Speaker 02

  There's a concept that we labeled disagree and commit. So I felt like Vincent and I were pretty aligned.

• 42:36Speaker 02

  For most things, and there were certain things where we weren't aligned. And I think we fought pretty hard. One of them being the energy bars, the dang bars that we launched in 2019. And ultimately, it came time to make the decision. And Vincent was like, all right, I'm going to do this. We're going to do this, and this is why. And I know you're concerned, but just like, trust me. And I did that. And so the disagree and commit, the disagreement happens behind closed doors. And then, and then we come out on the other side. We're aligned publicly and we move on. And you keep going like that with your partner.

• 43:21Speaker 02

  That's something I will take to the future.

• 43:24Guy Raz?

  And what about things that you didn't quite do right? That now reflecting on it, you, you wouldn't do that again?

• 43:33Speaker 02

  I'd say spending too much on marketing or on demos too early. When you're really focused, should be focused on product market fit and that you have a really good core line and understanding what the consumers need and want. And continuing to tinker without before spending that much money on marketing. I think that's, that's a big lesson specifically for CPG.

• 43:57Guy Raz?

  And, and, and did you, I mean, is that something that you guys probably spent too much on initially?

• 44:04Speaker 01

  I think at the beginning, we did things like go to consumer shows. So there are these shows like Green Festival and Fit Expo, Women's Expo, that were meant to hit at a specific consumer. And we tried a lot of them without actually trying to pinpoint who the consumer was before that. I think we saw it as a way to spread, you know, word about the brand. But, you know, looking back, like, there were just too many different shows and too many different types of people. We should be more precise about who we're targeting. And then we ended up having to redesign our packaging multiple times because I think we were probably swayed at the time we had just raised some money. And so our investors

• 44:46Speaker 01

  had a perspective on what they thought we were, but rather than dig down and say, okay, we are an Asian American snack company. We kind of went in the direction of, oh, we're a healthy snack company. We're a national food company, which to us wasn't differentiated when you really picked it apart. There's a lot of healthy snack companies, but what was unique to us is the fact that we're using an authentic recipe from Thai cuisine. And so leaning into that later on, it felt better and it felt more authentic to who we were.

• 45:21Speaker 02

  I will say that our family, or specifically our father, lent some money into the company. And it was not an immaterial amount. And he did get a payout with the creditors because he was a part of that class, equal to everyone else, but he was not made whole. And I, for a long time, felt a lot of shame about that. And Vincent, I think we called him and I remember him saying, like, it's cool. I still love you guys. And I'm happy to have helped you have this experience with each other.

• 46:04Guy Raz?

  Yeah, I mean, I think both of you guys are parents, right?

• 46:07Speaker 01

  I am, yes.

• 46:08Guy Raz?

  Yes. And so imagine if your child asked you for some help to start their business and it didn't work out. You'd still be super proud of them, right? Like, just think about your own kid.

• 46:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think the fact that he saw a lot of himself in what we were doing, too. So he moved to the US in 1977 and started a candle business. And he was importing candles from Thailand. Him and my mom also had a silk flower business. So we actually grew up in those businesses and go into the trade shows. And so we learned a lot of the skills and the lingo from growing up around that. And the fact that we were doing a similar business model, but with coconut chips and rice chips, I think he saw that, hey, he had influenced us. And he was probably proud that he was able to influence us enough to start a business and have it run for 10 years.

• 47:04Guy Raz?

  You know, obviously Vincent, you're involved in this new company and Andrew, you are doing consulting work. Do either of you imagine with all that you've learned from dang, maybe starting something, either together or separately, starting something new again one day, a new business?

• 47:23Speaker 01

  I could definitely see doing something. I don't think it would be in the exact same consumer product industry niche. So what I mean is that, you know, there's a lot of challenges with coming up with a consumer product, you know, bringing it to market, dealing with distribution and retailers. It's all the chips are stacked against you as a smaller player. And, you know, I don't think that it's, it's just not a, it's not a game that I want to play again necessarily. However, I think if you can find a niche or maybe a technological advantage, or be a part of the ecosystem in a different way,

• 48:05Speaker 01

  like, you know, creating, say, say it's like AI for flavor innovation, something like that, then I think that's super interesting because I can, you know, use what I've learned about this industry to, to my advantage and come at it with a different angle.

• 48:21Guy Raz?

  But I mean, as you guys say, I mean, the brand persists and in 10, 15, 20 years time, even when you're far, far removed from it, I mean dang foods, dang products might be thriving.

• 48:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I hope it's around until I'm no longer around. You know, it's, it's nice to be able to walk around Whole Foods with my three-year-old and pick up a bag. And, you know, I think the baby picture on the back of me and Andrew, I was about three years old and Andrew's about one. And so when my daughter sees that picture, she, she says, oh, that's me because I look just like her. So it's pretty cool to be able to walk around and show her that.

• 49:03Speaker 02

  You know, it's cool to definitely see ourselves or what we've, what we, what Vincent specifically created on shelf at Whole Foods and it's still there and might be there for the next 10 years, might grow. Another thing that I'm very proud of, there's a lot of other Asian-inspired brands now.

• 49:24Speaker 02

  The names that I think of are Flyby Jing, Sanzo, Omsom, that I believe are following what we've done. And they're doing it with arguably a lot of authenticity in spreading Asian flavors, Asian culture from day one. And I'm really proud to see them doing really well in this space. And hopefully it leads to more Asian entrepreneurs in the future taking a leap of faith.

• 49:59Guy Raz?

  Andrew Vincent, thank you so much.

• 50:02Speaker 02

  Thank you, Guy. Thank you. I also want to say, us being able to be on your show is like one of the pinnacles of our time at Dang.

• 50:13Guy Raz?

  Oh, thanks. That's so nice to hear.

• 50:15Speaker 02

  Like, there's others that are like, oh, I think about the exit, or I think about this. But yours is definitely up there if it's not like the number one thing that we look back on this experience. And we have like a freaking codified recording of like the highs and lows of all of it. And like, what better honor to like, share that with like, millions of people and for us to like, have this with us for life. So I just, I personally wanted to thank you.

• 50:41Guy Raz?

  That's Vincent and Andrew Kitchiratragan, co-founders of Dang Foods. Hey, thanks so much for listening to How I Built This Lab this week. Please make sure to click the follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode of the show. And as always, it's free. This episode was produced by Carla Esteves with editing by John Isabella. Our music was composed by Ramtin Arablouei. Our audio engineer was Neil Rausch. Our production team at How I Built This includes Alex Chung, Casey Herman, Chris Messini, J.C. Howard, Kerry Thompson, Malia Agudelo, and Sam Paulson. Neva Grant is our supervising editor. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This Lab.