Advice Line with Pete Maldonado and Rashid Ali of Chomps

Transcript from https://podmenti.com/t/45a44dee9e7e503e

Hello and welcome to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz. This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges. Each week, I'm joined by a legendary founder, a former guest on the show.
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All right.
Let's get to it.
This week I'm joined by Pete Maldonado and Rashid Ali, co-founders of the grass-fed meat stick brand Chomps. Uh, Pete Rashid, great to have you guys back on the show.
Thank you for having us. Yeah, thanks for having us.
You were first on the show in in twenty twenty three. Uh
And as always to anyone listening,
If you haven't heard that story, we'll put a link to it in the episode description. It's an awesome story that eventually led to this amazing brand, Chomps. Um, Pete, you actually came back
Onto the show for advice line. Uh so it's not your first time here. Rashid, uh welcome to the advice line and thanks for for coming on. Yeah, thank you.
Um, before we get to our our collars, I want to ask you guys a couple of questions. Uh, we're in a protein world today. It just it seems like uh people are putting protein in water and yogurt ice cream. I'm seeing protein everywhere. You guys have been in the protein business for a long time.
And every w trend I'm reading, every sort of forecast is saying the protein market is just
it can expand and boom and grow. So tell me a little bit about
You guys are uh both leaders in this category, but also riding a wave, too.
Guy, we're on the right side.
Of a big trend.
But like you said, we've been at this for a while, and we think
Like at some point with any trend there will be
Consumer fatigue. Like sometimes internal we talk about like the proteinication of everything. You mentioned water and ice cream and popcorn. And so chocolate. Exactly. And so
Chomps is winning on the current momentum behind
protein, but we're going to win on the other side when folks get a little bit fatigued on it. But at the end of the day, I mean there's a lot of
Room.
for um additional protein to folks' diets, especially convenient um natural sources and chomps is that that solve for our consumers.
You know, listen, this is this is a a cultural shift. It's not a fad.
People are changing the way they're they're dieting and eating.
And they're educating themselves and that's not going away, right? And so we always knew, you know, protein was was uh people needed more protein in their diets when we started this thirteen years ago.
That's why we're here.
Uh but we never anticipated, you know, GLP ones and
You know, doctors all over the place telling their
Their patients.
you need to eat more protein and it's it's more protein per calorie, right?
And uh this is you know, it it's a wave for us for sure.
Yeah.
I want to talk to you guys about last year because
you faced a challenge last year. And I I'll just kind of give some background, which is
There nobody found it, but there was a possibility that one batch uh was contaminated with with a bit of metal. And and this is something that is not common, but it can happen in a manufacturing process.
There's metal equipment, there's all kinds of metal that that food goes through and and you know, very rarely a tiny piece of metal can could chip off from a grinder or something.

You guys found out about it. Nobody saw metal in their chomps, but but it was a possibility and you had to recall
Just
Tons and tons of products which
um I th I imagine was a really was a a low point for you guys last year. Can you can you talk a little bit about
Just
How the
Well you know, like
Just how you kinda handle that.
It was
One the hardest
Um
times in the business really just
figuring out how to react. And I'll say it was an isolated incident, exactly to what you said.
We did an internal investigation and identified one of our seven facilities on one packaging line at an evening shift on a Friday where something seemed off. So
To avoid any risk, we expanded the scope.
quite significantly and did a
Uh uh.
Pretty large scale recall.
It was painful.
Like it felt like the world was ending, even though it was so isolated. I mean, like at the end of the day, Jomps is mine and Pete's.
Baby.
We s we started this from nothing and it and and
It's here because of our consumers. So you think about like the potential risk of chomps putting any of our consumers at risk, we were not going to do that.
So we went through the process and in the end.
We didn't find any metal, right? There was no adverse reactions. Thankfully no one got hurt. We got through it and
Um
It was tough. Like I I always say when I tell the team one recall is one too many.
Right. It it just it's it's not acceptable. We can be better. We have to have processes, we have to have controls in place. But
No, I can say with
with complete confidence that we have handled it. We've got through it. And I think like the organization infrastructure is far stronger.
Because we we did say like we can get tighter here, here, and here, and and now we have new processes to make sure that it can't it won't happen again.
Yeah.
I mean the way y you know, it reminds me of Jenny's Splendid Ice Cream. She had uh a a a recall early on in that brand and and the way she handled it was so same way. You know, it instantly there was nothing was confirmed, but it was like simply because of the possibility they recalled their ice cream, it cost them millions of dollars. And consumers really appreciated that that
preemption and that, you know, sort of over correction and at the end of the day, you know, not only did it not hurt the business, but the business g just grew exponentially.
Uh and I imagine, you know, y you had a similar reaction from from your customers, um, but it I imagine it cost you a lot of money. A painful amount of money.
It did. Yeah. It's and and it's and it's still it's still TBD as far as the ultimate exposure. It just at the end of the day, we
When we were going through
The
cost or expense never crossed our mind, right? The the goal was to
re remove any consumer risk, any product risk, and make sure we make the right decision, long term decision. So like yes
It was a material cost. We're still kind of weeding through the total.
Impact. Um
But no regret.
Yeah. It sounds like you guys handled that really, really well. Um, all right, what do you guys say? Let's bring in our our first caller. Shall we do it?
Absolutely. Let's go. All right, let's go. Let's bring our first caller. Welcome to the advice line. You are on with the co-founders of Chomps. Uh, tell us your name.
Where you're calling from and just a little bit about your business, please.
Hi Guy, Pete and Rashid.
I really appreciate you having me here today.
My name is Yadi Davis. I am the co founder of
Yadis Artesanal Impanada here in Newples, New York.
Awesome. Welcome to the show, Yachty. And Yaddi's empanadas, so I'm assuming you make empanadas. Do you
Uh sell them in stores and grocery stores. Tell me about the business.
Sure. So Yadis and Panadas really started. I was a formal teacher for twenty three years or so, but food has always been a passion. So I come from a Latin culture. And panadas is just uh something that I grew up eating as a childhood favorite. And as it became something trendy
And I realized that culturally it was catching on.
I honestly couldn't find an authentic empanada anywhere. And everywhere we try empanadas uh
They were either greasy, not freshly made, uh, they didn't have enough filling.
I

really quickly becoming like a a quick fast food. Yeah.
So I I r really wanted to elevate uh
uh uh a street food into something that you're you feel good about eating, that's made with fresh ingredients where we're not compromising the quality and the flavor. And so uh that's really where it all started.
Uh, I love it. So you were a teacher
And when did you start this business? When did you did you did you left your teaching career to start this business?
I sure did. So I thought for twenty three years
And and two thousand twenty one.
decided that I will resign.
And I would start the business right from my kitchen.
And so for about a year we focus on uh just
selling to co workers and friends and schools and then from there we uh landed in a commercial kitchen.
Did that for a little bit. We ended up starting farmers market, pop ups, events. We then bought a food truck in twenty twenty three.
Wow. And from the food truck we landed
at Sunino Polsa.
the opportunity came. At the university there. At the university there. So you opened a s uh a brick and mortar space or a a physical space on the campus there?
So I think that's it so while it is a space that we have, we f we started our first location was we August of twenty twenty four. We opened uh the far
And off campus inside a small convenience store. So previous to that, we were making the production from the commercial kitchen, but when the
opportunity came in to
go on campus
was an approved for us to be producing from the share space
And so the compromise was for us to produce right from their campus.
But at a hefty
Fee.
Got it. Okay.
So you now you have a uh you saw most of Rampanadas on the SUNY New Paul's campus now?
I do. And tell me a little bit about w uh about your sales. How you guys how how did you do last year?
So the first year we did, we from day one, our sales were really good. Uh we were doing averaging about fifteen hundred a day on daily sales, right from day one.
Uh by the end of that semester, they had moved us into the bigger location centrally located on campus.
Because we were doing so well. And within a week, there we had double our sales. So our sales are currently and have been now for a whole year.
On average.
of three thousand dollar daily. Wow. That does go up some days to thirty five hundred on really good days, but average we're making three grams a day.
So f three grand a a a day, I mean that's
That's pretty great. I mean you'd maybe doing
Seven hundred thousand more or more a year in sales.
Correct. Wow, amazing. Okay, so before we dive in further, what is your question for us?
We're wondering at what point do we do we think about a second location, brick and mortal, since right now technically while I have this location, it's not really ours. Do I move into other colleges and really duplicate what we have into other schools? Do I go back to distribution? So is that that sort of like
road and the what do we do? All right, so sales are strong at this location on the SUNY New Paul's campus.
You're wondering whether you should open a second location or focus on distribution or combination. But Pete, Rashid, I wanna bring you guys in.
Um thoughts or questions for Yachty?
Yeah, Yaddy. Nice to meet you. This is Pete. Um
Yeah, you're speaking my language here. I'm I grew up eating a ton of empanadas. I'm Colombian and uh my grandmother used to
Make them all the time. My mom makes them now. It's the only thing I ask for for my birthday, which is coming up at the end of this month. So I'm very excited to get my batch of empanadas. Um okay, so my first question is about, you know, labor and management at this
This first location that you have.
Are you a is this thing running itself? Like while you're here talking to us, is there somebody there selling appanatos? So it really is now. So when it started, it was really my husband and I, uh and and my children. So it was really family working around the clock eighteen, twenty hours a day. My husband will leave his job, go there. Now we have a team of nine people and I have a manager that's being trained now.
family also, it's really trying to keep it family
uh as much as we can. And uh so no, I don't have to be there now for for Yadis and Panadas to to run.
That's great. Yeah. So it sounds like from like a product standpoint, you know exactly how to replicate this in terms of equipment and all those things, recipe, it's you know, it's all pretty much replica, but you know, you can just do this over and over again.
I think you know, for me it would be like, you know, management and labor pool would be the the biggest question marks. Um
And then it would be like you know least real estate. I would say real estate. That's the other question. It's like do you have a do you have a unique situation in the current environment where as you start thinking about secondary locations or scaling, are you gonna incur an additional cost? So like y'all are you currently are you currently profitable in the
In the existing
Like at the seven hundred K, like you're you are profitable? We are. Uh I've worked with a consultant to help figure out the where our costs should be in terms of food costs.
uh employee cost, payroll. I think the only concern and well, one of the concerns is that with a college campus, uh, while we do really well those months that we're open, it is closed during the summer. It is closed for a whole month for the winter. So we have all these breaks. And what I found last summer is that while we made
great money and there were still profit
I now have a period of four month when I'm not making
Any money.
So that's that's where we are right now.
Yeah, yeah, the the seasonality aspect of working at with colleges that makes a lot of sense. But then you mentioned before the food truck idea. I think that's the solve. I mean, if you have a food truck and it if you have a campus that allows you to
have space somewhere on campus, you can
hit that target market and then as soon as school's out, you go move that truck somewhere else where it's gonna be, you know.
I get some foot foot traffic. Yeah, I I guess uh you answered the first first question that Pete had, which is g
Yeah.
Without you on site.
Right, this existing location. And so is there
A person on your team
Who could potentially run a second location if you opened it tomorrow?
Yes.
Great. And I think that the other question is i and and and it speaks to this idea of real estate, right? You are in s New Pulse, New York. I guess you're between New York City and Albany, right?
Uh and New York City is a t I mean, that's m that's challenging, but I think
You know, based on what we know from franchise businesses that have been on the show,
W their expansion strategy usually begins with one location within 45 miles. So within an hour or so drive. So you can handle
that second location to to kind of test market it.
We've actually looked into Connecticut.
We're we're really beginning to
do our research and investigate Connecticut. We like Connecticut because from Newples to Connecticut we're less than an hour away. New Haven's got students, right. It's got plenty of colleges. And so I think f it's really really trying to figure out do we just continue this path of colleges since it's a niche and seem to be working.
And or do I just think about opening some sort of a kitchen my own
sort of commercial kitchen with m maybe a little bit of a front store where I can maybe combine
Oh fuck?
I like that latter idea.
But if you pair it with
Think about delivery. Like it seems like such a portable great item if you think of it like DoorDash or Uber Eats that option out of a kitchen. Like so true. So scalable. Yes. And then maybe you have a second arm where you have somebody that's focused on maybe within a twenty mile radius.
bookstores or coffee shops, like you're you're morning dropping off the empanadas during that life, like there's other opportunities where you can kind of be creative about how to scale.
And get as many empanadas in in in people's mouths as possible. Yeah. Yeah, that's like a commissary model. It's very similar to like what the bagel industry up in uh New York area.
It's the same same exact thing. So they'll make a ton of bagels and deliver'em, you know, daily or whatever to all the bagel stores all over the place. You could do exactly that.
And whether you're serving your own food trucks or various locations that are like guys said in it, it's gotta be close enough to where it makes sense.
Absolutely.
And I think that that sort of solidify that that idea that uh distribution is where it is, the the cost of renting, the cost of the overhead of expenses, of training of employee while I enjoy it and really is so gratifying to see the students come in and people enjoying a meal. It it is a lot.
Whereas when we started and we were doing distribution, you make empanadas.
They I d I really didn't have to work so hard at getting people to get them.
But you know, empanadas it's not
It's not like there's an empanada shop on every corner, like there's a burger joint every corner, right? It's it's but it's

to be something really interesting, especially if you're finding success in a college town. And so
It it does make sense to me that you're looking at a place like New Haven, where you've got a lot of students, it's not that expensive, and you could generate a lot of buzz around it. Like, Oh, hey, I heard ya you know, Yachtis empanadas are coming to New Haven, you know, especially if you work with like
uh local alternative weeklies or the
the Yale newspaper, whatever local websites or
food writers are out there and you kinda build buzz
It could be a really interesting place to be.
I think you're very right.
And I I see that in our future.
Um
Uh
as always, you know, there is that that feeling of are we ready, are we not? But having this conversation today with all three of you really does give me that confidence and and that trust and believe that
It
if it it's now or never just it where can I I have nothing to lose. I quit my job four years ago and I'm here. So
moving forward now and and taking that next leap of faith and going to the next level.
I got nothing else to lose.
All right. Rashid, final thoughts. Any final thoughts for Yachty? I'm hungry. Like I don't know why we did this so late in the day. I'm I'm so hungry. I want empanadas. I'm sure somehow, some way you guys get some amazing empanadas. I believe you, Yadis Reese, founder of Yachtis Empanadas. Thanks for calling in. Good luck. Keep us posted.
Thank you so much for having me today.
Thank you.
We're gonna take a quick break, but when we come back, another collar, another question, and another round of advice.
I'm Guy Raw, stick around, you're listening to the advice line on how I built this lab.
Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz. My guests today are Chomps co-founders Pete Maldonado and Rashid Ali. Uh Pete Rashid, you guys ready for the next call?
Let's do it. All right, let's bring in our next caller, welcome me advice line.
Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and a little bit about your business.
Hi there, I'm Zachary. I'm I'm a co founder of Noble Pies.
Uh our bakery is located in the Hudson Valley.
We make both sweet and savory pies with real ingredients and an all butter crust. In twenty twenty five, we officially launched our wholesale line.
And we have three retail stores outside of New York City and are launching our first New York City store in twenty twenty six.
Awesome.
Uh thanks for calling in. Um so
So Noble Pies, sweet and savory pies are based out of the Hudson Valley.
Um, how long have you been the pie business?
Yeah, our our business started in two thousand eight unexpectedly.
Uh when the financial crisis hit
Um my family owned a horse business and overnight
We pretty much lost our business. Horses are a high commodity item and luxury.
Um, so my mother went back to her roots.
And she resurfaced some old recipes for my great grandmother.
And she dropped off me, my brother, and my sister at the local orchard.
To pick a bunch of fruit.
They brought the fruit back home.
Uh we baked about
Fifty Pies.
And we set up a little picnic table on the side of the road of our farm
Um and
Literally within an hour we sold out of Pies.
And it turned into an every weekend business and
Now we're here.
Wow. So tell me a little bit about the business. Where where do you primarily sell your pies today?
Most of our business is out of our retail stores and farmers markets and our main
Wholesale account is fresh direct.
Fresh direct. Okay. And how and tell me a little bit about your your your sales. What do you guys expect to do or would you do last year?
Yeah, uh so
Between our three stores in in twenty twenty five, we did about two point two million in sales. Wow. And um our first year of wholesale.
With
Uh Fresh Direct, we did about uh two hundred thousand dollars.
And these are frozen pies or fresh pies you're selling.
So these are fresh frozen
Ps pies a single serving, sweet and savory.
Got it. Okay, before we bring our uh Chomps co founders in, tell me uh what question you have for us, Echo.
So
Uh, since we just launched our wholesale line, we feel like we're ready for larger retailers like Whole Foods and Target.
I've applied to their regional supplier programs.
Um and did not have any luck in the in the past few years.
So I'm looking for new tools, strategies.
And approaches that work in today's market to break through.
All right, makes sense. Uh awesome. I wanna bring uh Rashid and Pete in, um guys, so
Double pie.
Be doing they've been doing this for a while. They've got uh clear uh
Track record.
What do you think? Any thoughts, questions for Zachary?
Yeah, hey, Zachary. Yeah, this is Pete.
Great to meet you. Yeah, great job, by the way. This is um
So it's y you said two point two million. I couldn't believe it. I was like, Okay, that's great. In terms of scaling from here.
What's your capacity and how much could how many pies could you make in a day or a week or however however you're looking at it?
That's a great question. So we we can put out about
Ten thousand pies per week in the facility that we're in now.
And within six months we can
Triple that.
With some modifications of our bakery and a little bit of expansion.
And then in terms of of distribution, you are
You're shipping these or h are you hand delivering these to the stores, or how's that working?
Yep, so right now we're self distributing
uh so that we can stay as lean as possible. It allows us to reinvest as much as we can into our into our business.
So that when it's time to
Pull the trigger with that bigger account we can
Be ready.
Uh shelf life.
How how long do these
Eve I gather they're frozen, but I'm just curious from a shelf life perspective, because obviously when you layer in distribution, you're adding
Days.
It's about four months.
Exactly. Uh question for you. Because uh frozen pizzas have been I mean, that's been completely, you know, redone, right? There's all kinds of interesting frozen pizzas, but I I frozen pie hasn't been upgraded in the same way. So what is the
What is the argument you make?
that that these pies are better than what might be available right now from like the I don't know, Sarah Lee or whoever's in the Safeway or uh or even the Whole Foods uh f freezer section.
So at Noble Pies were so true to
What is actually interpies?
Our pies are made with an all butter crust.
Our filling is made from scratch in small smaller batches, but
You know, it can be made in larger batches.
And we advertise how few ingredients are in our pies.
You know, when you go to the grocery store now, those product labels are
Pretty populated w with the ingredients.
Um so
That's our marketing and branding point.
And also the fact that we actually try to source
As much as we can from New York State.
So we also
brand you're getting a taste of New York and the Hudson Valley.
Because we have tons of farms here, it's a beautiful place.
So you're making the argument to a buyer that you are the upgrade from what what's whatever's out there right now. That it's n unlike pizza, which has a bunch of options, there aren't that many options in pies.
You're that upgrade. But I think and and and Pete and Rashid, you guys can speak

The reality of of buyers for these
big chains, whether it's Whole Foods or Target or whatever, is
They don't always
discover brands. It's not always our job. Their job is actually to manage risk.
Right, and to
To to focus on velocity.
You're you're basically
You you want to show that by
bringing this product on, they are de risked in a sense. Is that is that a fair
Argument, Rashid and Pete.
That's absolutely um you also want to be able to have a good sell story. And I think one of the stories that that um Rashid and I were able to get with Chomps it was from the data that we had was incrementality.
Meaning we're bringing new customers to the set.
You need to be able to find a way to tell that story to the buyer because they need to know that you're not just gonna be cannibalizing
If he's gonna take somebody else out, another brand out and put you in
And sales stay flat? What's the point?
Right. So he's got to figure out okay, I'm gonna put them in and they're gonna bring new customers to this set.
that were never shopping here before and grow the category. So like that's the name of the game.
Yeah, and I'd add
Because you have a four month shelf life.
Like that's I assume that's somewhat low in the fr I don't know frozen that well, but I would assume
Four months is probably
a little bit on the lower side. So like you have to prove that you have strong velocities that the product will turn and you
further have to approve your repeat rate.
that not only are you gonna get that first customer in, that they will come back.
And buy it again.
Okay.
Exactly, you have that data. You're gonna have six to twelve months of of that that velocity data. You could focus on one skew. You don't need to show the data for all the products.
Because at the end of the day it's the
It's the store manager who's gonna be your biggest advocate.
Like if you can get
A store manager.
To be your advocate.
With whole foods.
that's gonna have more weight than, you know, you kinda cold calling them, right?
Mm-hmm. I've always wondered if if that still works in this day and age of of whole foods. And I'm so glad that
You're answering that question for me because
I haven't walked in and talked to a a store manager just yet, so I'm definitely going to try doing that. I think those are the people you want your side.
And to like exactly from
To answer your initial question, I think
It's it's gonna sound
Odd, but like getting into the retailer is honestly the easiest part of the process. It's it's staying and performing. So like
You know, you've been in at this for a while.
seems like your product is differentiated. There's something there and it'll succeed in retail, but
You're gonna succeed if you can have some focus, like pick.
Not just whole foods, but you should do the Northeast region or just a pocket of stores and keep it really focused and s build the story and grow over time. Cause
The problem is right now you're self-distributing. Once you introduce distribution into your business, it's a level of complexity and cost that you don't fully understand.
And then you're introduced trade requirements, which you
currently don't have and and it's it's like this this slippery slope where
Uh retail sounds great.
But sometimes it's just
a feather and a cap or a vanity metric. Like if if you if you have a model that works
in your retail stores and the farmers market and Fresh Direct, where it's a direct program, that's great, but you got to continue to grow depth in those channels and then pick one more channel and grow that. And then pick another.
And that's what we did at Chomps.
Like we're we say like we're a thirteen year overnight success. I mean, it took us a long time before we approached
the targets of the world, right? Before we went
to the club channel. Cause if you go too quick too early, it can really start unraveling and introduce so much complexity and cost where it can materially challenge the business.
That's great advice because I always feel like I'm a little fish in the sea.
And
Yeah, it's true. I should just stay focused on
Those first customers.
And continue to serve them and get that feedback.
And
Again also watch the velocity of
the repeat purchasing in the store. Zachary, are you doing any
E commerce, direct to consumer, or anything like that?
Uh we actually used to uh sell on QVC network. We did for about uh two years.
Um we don't do it now because shipping costs are so high. Um
But we are looking into
Doing e commerce again.
In the future.
Yeah, I feel like I s I get like these frozen pizzas from like Gino Z from people in Chicago, like these other
Like I I know it's gotta cost an astronomical amount, but they're doing it for like holidays or seasonal stuff. So
Might be something for you to look into, um, especially if you have people are just kinda die hard fans of the brand.
And maybe even just reach out to them and just kinda survey some of your customers if you have their contact info.
But um I would just try to find out from them, like would you ever buy these for a gift and just kinda start small with it and see if it works.
And then you might be able to scale out from there. That's great advice. Our email box gets flooded every every holiday with
Thousands of emails.
Can you ship to California? Can you ship to Texas?
Um
So I will definitely do that.
Awesome.
Uh, Zachary Bonder, co owner of Noble Pies. Thanks so much for calling in. Good luck.
Thank you.
Thanks, Zachary. Appreciate it.
Alright, we're gonna take another quick break, but we'll be right back with another caller. Stay with us, I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to the advice line right here on how I built this lab.
Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab.
I'm Guy Raz, and today I'm taking your calls with Rashida Lee and Pete Maldonado of Chomps.
Let's bring in our final caller. Welcome to the show.
Hey guys.
Before I introduce myself, I just want to say uh long time listener, first time caller.
Awesome.
Years and years, but I'm also a huge Chomps fan. So we have the nice piled up in our pantry at my house. So uh
I'm fanboying out a little bit here, I'm I'm gonna be perfectly honest.
My name is Josh Shrinko. I'm the co-founder and president of A Cheegan brand.
And we are the official brand of smallmouth bass.
Awesome.
Um, so tell me what you guys make. What do you sell?
So we started with
Kind of the easiest thing we could start with, which was apparel.
Um apparel b around a theme of small mouth.
Bass. Okay.
Yeah. Exactly. So
Uh quite niche.
But we uh
Yeah, it started doing apparel. Um, and to be honest, I I don't want to get too much into it, but
I started a podcast um seven years ago and
Sort of found out there was a tribe.
in this like super nerdy
uh corner of the fishing industry that
I was super passionate about.
And I was like, Hey, I w I wanna work in the fishing industry for a living.
And I was like, I'm just gonna start my own thing. So I partnered with a couple of good friends of mine who are super talented artists, and we started
Putting uh
shirts and designs and hats and that sort of thing and
put on a Shopify platform and you know, we we
See, I love this. So there's there are lifestyle brands, right? Golf and other, you know, sports and even fishing. You're focused on like a niche of niche, smallmouth bass.
Lifestyle brand. And what what tell me like as I'm looking at your website now, it says for those who bleed bronze, which is the color of the fish, right?
Can you s explain the passion for like
fishing for this particular fish? Is it just'cause they're available and they're or is it just there's a particularly
Just
Thing about
G going for this kind of fish.
Yeah, how much time do you got, guy?'Cause I could go on along. Smallmouth or
Awesome. So they one are native. So it's really cool to think like our our brand is a Chigan, which is the Algonquin word for smallmouth.
Um and
that translates into one which fights.
So
Um they
or super awesome fighters. So they jump really high. They're they're kind of like the
hip cool fish and bass fishing.
Largemout are a little bit like lazy. They don't like to move a lot. Smallmouth are like crazy. Um, they are really fun.
Uh fun to catch, so.
Right. And and do you release them or do you eat them?
Or both.
So our we we say this frequently. Well, actually at the end of every podcast, free the fighter. So we are we are advocating for conservation. So we definitely promote catch and release.
Oh, that's cool. So you catch'em, release them. Wow. So it really it's like about the sport. Okay, so you've got this apparel brand, you sell shirts, I'm looking at your website now. Shirts, hats all around this product. Tell me a little bit about about how the business is doing.
Yeah, so we're in year we just started year five.
Um, we have expanded into a couple different things. Um
We run an online board game for fishermen and then
We also just last spring we launched our
first lure and our line of fishing lure, which is kind of the
In our pipeline, that's the long term strategy is like build out a
Several SKUs of lures.
And then
really start to look at getting that into retail.
that sort of thing. We can't produce them fast enough inside of our
or sm small little office here. Um they
sell too fast. So we're we're looking for a contract manufacturer right now.
to do that and we're also prototyping um with uh
The stuff we're making in house.
Based on what you're selling right now, what'd you do in in sales last year?
So we just missed the hundred thousand dollar mark last year, which I was that was a big goal of ours to hit that. That's still pretty great. And and and most of that is coming from hats and shirts.
Yeah, uh the the lures definitely are like a a little bit of a hack because we can sell as many as we can make, but yeah, uh still the majority of our sales are apparel just because that's what most of our inventory is. Got it. All right, and before we dive in further, what's your question for us?
Yeah, so
I'm at a place in my business where
I want to jump off and I want to do this full time.
I have
Two kids and a wife.
And
I'm not the at the age or position in my life where I can eat ramen for two years.
Right. So
I have to like
have some capital to work with to be able to do this. And it is
You know.
You guys talk about cash flow, that's a huge
Huge challenge.
How
Like strategically.
What
path should I take to get to this full time? Cause I have so many things I want to do.
Like this is like
And
so passionate about this business and really just fishing in general.
Josh, you said you're you brought up uh l s slightly under a hundred grand in sales last year. Well just very briefly, what is your what is your full time job? What's your day job?
Yeah, I own a um medical distribution company. So we sell to like orthopedic rehab equipment, um and we we service the local like central Indiana and Louville area. So yeah. And you wanna ideally you wanna focus entirely on this and you wanna know when
I guess when to make that leave. All right, uh Pete Rashid, you guys
Uh I'm sure I've a lot of thoughts on this. You started I mean
Pete certainly you had uh all different kinds of businesses, real estate and
And it didn't work out and you know, you and and and then you start this thing.
Thoughts, questions, comments for Josh?
Yeah, I'm gonna let or she'd kick us one up.
I think it it's
It's a really interesting topic, especially for Pete and I because
know we always joke around like our partnership was not always great at in ear at the early days, and it's really because, you know, Pete went full time
I'm about four years into the business.
That was in twenty sixteen and I went full time in twenty eighteen. So there was that two year
time period where Pete was full time and I was part time.
And
I think
Ultimately.
the question I have and you don't necessarily have to answer it, but it's something to think about and reflect is like
You mentioned you're doing a hundred thousand, you mentioned you have a family, you mentioned you're not gonna eat ramen, right? So you have to start thinking about it's like
What do you need to support?
your life and at what point can you scale the business to get there.
Right, and how much risk can you take.
And then how much risk can your partners take?
to run the business. So it's like those are it's really kind of self reflection where you have to figure out what can you do to get there and
You know.
You have the entrepreneurial spirit as far as like
creative and ideation, but like success is
I always found it's rooted in focus.
Right.
And and and that's the hard part about it is trying to figure out right, you have an apparel business, but I looked at online and it looks like
This isn't uh
It's not like a functional apparel, right? Where it's like
technical gear for f it's right, it's more li it's purely lifestyle, right? But then
you transition quickly into a purely functional lure side of the business, right? Because you found a niche. So that's that's where you try to think about is like take a step back to see like where do you want the brand to go?
ultimately and have a clear path to get there and also one that can support
Your your lifestyle, right? And your family. Yeah, and and I would say that
It's a little bit of like a self fulfilling prophecy, right? If you don't go full time with the business, it's not gonna get where you want it to go.
Unless you have a viral moment.
Or you have this like
Breakthrough, which for you guys, that was the call from Trader Joe's, right? Like you got a call and you're like, hey
Like we got a million dollar PO. Let's go figure out a way to fulfill it.
Like
I could keep doing this.
As
And I'm content to do it for a little while longer.
Like
just kinda grinding it out and kinda waiting for something to happen. I'm more of a person
That wants to make things happen.
though and I am like hey
Do I need to
Uh, raise some money, which I have never done. And we have had people approach us, a lot of people asking to invest in this business.
And it's
I I don't I don't even know what I'm doing. They're just
Be honest.
Do I need to raise money? Right now we're bootstrapping. So I'm funding it with my personal.
Um
You know.
finances which I haven't I don't
It it
It is profitable.
to the point where I don't have to keep putting money into it.
But it's also
Like it's not
I'm not
I don't have a bunch of bankroll that I'm making to be able to reinvest in the business. We just are kinda keeping doing what we're still doing. So
Yeah, Josh. Um
I think I'm gonna like maybe speak out of both sides of my mouth here because it's like okay, you've got this really niche niche audience, which is great because gonna allow you to make an impact and build a brand within that small audience for a small amount of money. It's exactly what Rashid and I did within the CrossFit community back in the day.
We had no money to do it, but we went door to door.
And basically
did what we had to do to build a brand within that community. That's that's you know, and then we kinda were able to snowball from there and add
other communities from there.
But I think for me, like your
I'm looking at your your um
Your clothing and then you have your your lures. You have a lot of skews across the portfolio here.
That's all that's gonna require a lot of capital.
So it's like okay.
That's gonna if you pull that back, you limit the size of the business. It's kinda it's kinda like a you know, but you have to figure out something. I think you need to focus now.
on what's gonna generate the most revenue for you. So you could actually build this to a place where you could actually go
full time and focus on it if that's what you want to do.
I'm guessing from a margin perspective the lures make you more money than the apparel?
Oh yeah.
Yeah, it's like a piece of rubber. Absolutely. Yeah.
Yeah, we'll all we'll always
Keep
Uh apparel just because
I that's
You know, it's about free marketing, essentially, that produces revenue, but
Um yeah, I do think our future is in
The lure's and then we have a a couple of other like just like
Things in the pipeline that we've talked about doing that could be
have a wider appeal that we could sell on like some marketplaces like Amazon, that sort of thing. And Josh, to your question when you think about like, you know, what signals that's time to go.
full time, I think for us, you you mentioned the Trader Joe's PO, but it wasn't necessarily just the PO. It ri was really around
When we saw the pr sales performance and the repeat rate and we saw that the product was really working, right? You mentioned the lures, you can't make them fast enough, you keep going out of stock. So like
obviously you have something there. Now what you need to figure out the unlock is like
How do you see what high is high?
Right, how do you assess true demand? Cause if you're going out of stock and you're running out, like you don't necessarily know what the ceiling is. It's like to me,
You need to solve that and that's gonna better understand like what is the potential and then
Like you send most of these technical brands
provide a technical offering and they wrap it. Apparel is a value add, right? And so I think you've you've already proven you have cool, fresh designs that it's are going to track, you need to create that anchor
technical solve, which you're circling right now, but once you figure out the unlock and how do you scale it, I think that's going to answer your question on are you ready to go? Like and then and then think about retail, then think about it as but like look at Pete and I love e commerce. We love direct to consumer, like it's such a great way to scale quickly and learn your product and grow, but
I think you're close. I think I my my read is like
figure out that unlock on how to scale the lures faster.
Yeah, and I'll add too our brand is like
We don't we haven't paid a dime in advertising.
Like we don't it's
A hundred percent organic.
It's word of mouth.
We use Instagram. That's kind of our like
growth engine, but it's all organic posting. So I feel like
when if I had a little bit of capital to work with, if I had more time
I could pour gas on this fire and I have
A path.
There's no.
It's just like
It's it's a tough
way to you know, it's a tough way to jump into it's scary, honestly.
Well you have you have th uh two other co founders, correct? Is that I I saw that on the website. Yes.
Yeah.
You know, Rashid and I no, I went full time first. I think we were doing in like the four or five hundred
thousand range and then Rashid didn't come on until we were doing like twenty million. So it was a big, like big gap. It was like maybe a couple years later. Yeah.
But you could find you could figure out like you know what works for you guys, maybe
Maybe one of you guys go full time and the other two are just kind of, you know, work your other job.
And then play more of a support role.
Um
Or may maybe take you know, it's like shift work or something like that, but this thing definitely needs full time.
Attention if you actually want it to scale.
It's a it's I think that's great advice. I mean I I also think, you know, at the end of the day
You will know.
When it's time, right. Right now
you you're sort of worried about you know mentioned you don't want to eat ramen and you know you don't you can't live on the salary and support a family.
But
When it starts to feel like doing this part time is riskier, that's when you know.
When when you start to s say to yourself, actually
It's safer for me to jump into this full time.
You will know that.
That will be clear to you.
Guy, you always have stage advice.
I always always hear that from you after after these interviews, so

Well, it's an awesome opportunity'cause you've tapped into something. Clearly there's a lot of passion around and and and you know
There doesn't seem to be a lifestyle real lifestyle brand around smallmouth.
you know, bass. So it it's a it's a cool idea and I you know, I just
I I think it I think you could you can really run with it. So so good luck.
Thank you guys. I r I really appreciate you having me on.
Yeah, Josh Renko, uh co founder of Achean.
Uh good luck. Keep us posted.
Thanks, Jeff.
Yeah, it's I mean, it it really like it is amazing to me how
There are all of these
And you know, we we hear about a lot on the show, these small communities, like these niche what seem to be niche, but actually they're much bigger than people realize, right? Like all these people who
Fish for certain kind of fish, or who
are interested in a very particular kind of watch or, you know, golf club or whatever it is, and people are building micro brands.
around these communities which are becoming
Interesting businesses.
Yeah.
It's a it's awesome. And it's also interesting to kind of think through but like nowadays with AI the way it is, like'cause a lot of them were talking about like how do I scale and how I build a team and all of these things and
This is something that Rashid and I back in the day, we didn't have access to A AI. It was all right and scrappy and using third parties.
Um
I wish I had better advice for them'cause we we don't even know we we don't even know how to use that, but I I hear s so many times people talking about
one person running an entire organization using AI and automation and it's in amazing.
Yeah, absolutely. Um guys, before I let you go, i if I and I Pete actually I think you answered this question last time we brought you on. Maybe I'll have a different answer now, but I'll start with Rashid. Uh w if you could go back to when you guys started Chomps and and knowing what you know now about the business and how to, you know
and and what you've learned. What would have been helpful for you to know, you know, thirteen years ago when you guys
launch this this brand.
Uh.
That's an interesting question. I mean
I think
I believe it's fortunate that we didn't know what we know now.
I think I think
It it is on honestly one of the reasons we're here today. Like we had a lot of folks in our ear giving us advice, but we just did what felt
Right.
I think
I'm
glad that we went a little bit blind and ignorant. And I think it allowed us to to ch to to make the right decisions to build it the way we built it. Um
Yeah.
I I'm I
we still have a lot more work to do, but I think we've built we have a lot of momentum. We're in the right place in the right category with a fantastic product, brand and team. So like I don't know. I I'm glad we win
a a bit ignorant and and we didn't know what we didn't know and I think it allowed us to get to where we are.
Yeah, so I would say
it's it's just being patient, right? With time and you know staying focused, things will will will work out, essentially. We've been on this chomp we call the chomps roller coaster because it's never
Just linear, right? It we're just we are either, you know, in having a terrible day or an amazing day.
And there's nothing in between.
Um
That's kinda been the entire ride since for the for the past thirteen years, so
Um I would say, you know, it's being patient and working through
Issues whether and and by the way, not getting complacent.
when things are going great and rosy,'cause it's gonna the challenges will come your way.
So just be ready for it.
Yeah. Pete Maldonado, Rashida Lee, uh thanks so much for coming back on, guys. Yeah, we appreciate it. Thanks for having us. Thanks, guy. Appreciate it, man.
Um, and by the way, if you guys haven't heard Pete and Rashid's original How I Built This episode, go back and check it out. It's a great, terrific episode. You will learn so much. We'll put a link to that in the uh show notes. And here's one of my favorite moments from that interview.
What was your purchase order for?
One point one million sticks
And it it was larger than the previous year altogether, in a single PO.
Wow.
And I'm thinking how this is I was like, This is not what we discussed. This is way more than what what we had we discussed.
And so I was like, give me a second. So I like I go in my room, I build my spreadsheet, I'm I'm calculating the total, like what does it actually look like? So I'm like
Pete we need.
I don't know, it's like one point something million to be able to to fund this.
And so
We then had to figure out like how we were gonna get the money.

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Or call us at one eight hundred-433-1298. Leave a message there, and make sure to tell us how to reach you, and we'll put all of this information in the podcast description as well. This episode was produced by Carrie Thompson with music composed by Ramtina Rabloui.
It was edit by John Isabella with engineering from Jimmy Keeley. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Elaine Coates, Neva Grant, Nor Gill, Casey Herman, Chris Massini, Katherine Seifer, and Ramel Wood. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to the advice line on how I built this lab.