Food Chained

2:04 – The inner drive of the entrepreneur
Jake has always had an entrepreneurial spirit and a desire to create something new. This mindset has helped him start multiple companies.

“I think, like with most crazy entrepreneurs, I had that inner drive in me. I always wanted to start my own thing. I love food, I love brand building, and I love just the idea of creating something out of nothing. And that's what gave me the drive to leave corporate behind and then start my first food company. So I know we talk about Fila Manila, but that is actually not my first startup. My first startup was a refrigerated functional beverage called Origin Almond. And we were talking before we started, Vasa, that my heart goes out to you in the beverage business because it is definitely not for the faint-hearted. So long story short, I started that company with 500 bucks out of our local farmer's market. And basically, I grew that to distribution with Whole Foods, with Walmart, and with almost nationwide distribution.”

3:59 – Get inspired
If you want to create a product that has real value, you have to be inspired by a need and excited to get that product out there.

“I came across an article that was kind of the inspiration behind Fila Manila, which I guess we're going to talk about today. And the article was talking about in some areas of the U.S., upwards of 20% of the healthcare workforce on the front lines of COVID happened to be Filipino. And I laughed at it because it's kind of an inside joke in most Filipino families. We have at least seven or eight cousins or uncles who happen to be nurses or doctors. It's like, if you're not a nurse, something is probably wrong with you in a Filipino family. And so that insight's like, ‘Whoa, this is pretty wild.’ So it made me excited to do more research about my people, my community. And it turns out we're the second largest Asian American community in the U.S., the largest in 11 states, including California, but I come from CPG and then my mind goes to the stores, like, ‘Wait a minute. If we're such a big part of the community, how come when I go to the Publix, the Wegmans, the Krogers, the Targets, the Whole Foods of the world, there's actually no representation of our cuisine on the shelf?’ I mean, you have to go to your local Asian supermarket in the dusty corner and find those MSG packets on the shelf. And I just felt like it wasn't right. And I felt like it was a perfect time to tap into that growing interest in Filipino cuisine and culture, and essentially that's how Fila Manila was born.”

7:43 – Bridging a gap in the market
When Jake started Fila Manila, he wasn’t sure where the product would fit in the market, but buyers were eager to champion his company.

“I decided to do our first product line as savory cooking sauces, and the idea is that these three savory cooking sauces would be the best representation of these iconic Filipino dishes that my family and most Filipino families across the U.S. would enjoy probably once every week or maybe more than once every week. So we did the cooking sauces, and then I remember reaching out to a buyer that I knew from my beverage days, and I'm like, ‘Hey. A buyer from a major chain. Do you remember me? I used to have those weird almond drinks. Now I have Filipino sauce. What do you think?’ And he is like, ‘I’ve got to reply back in 30 minutes.’ And he goes, ‘Jake, we've been waiting for someone to do Filipino food for years. We'll take all three SKUs.’ It's crazy because it shows you even retail knows there's this huge gap in the market and they’re baffled how no one has ever tackled it before. So that gave me the confidence to really pursue Fila Manila, getting off that minimum viable product of a couple things I bought on Amazon into something more legit.”

9:39 – Fundraising is hard
In today’s world, it’s tough to get the first round of fundraising for your company unless you have a solid network.

“For maybe some of the entrepreneurs or aspiring entrepreneurs that are listening, any early stage food and beverage, or maybe even these days any early-stage company's going to be very difficult to fundraise in the beginning. I mean, unless you have that established network, I don't know, like you're an alumni from a certain school, your family came from a certain background. It's going to be very difficult to get funding from step one. So, I felt like it was a difficult battle trying to approach investors, trying to approach friends and family, because it was such a new thing. And during the period of the lockdowns, the pandemic, everyone I knew was not in the great financial shape to invest money in a random startup. Do you know what I mean? So, for me, it's like, I felt the best way to do this was to probably start out with maybe an accelerator or an incubator.”

11:12 – Find the right partners
The best financial partners for your business are people who easily understand what your product does and why it’s valuable.

“There’s a lot of capital out there. The challenge and the tricky thing is finding those right partners with the capital that believe in you and your mission. So, when I sold Fila Manila to them in terms of an investment, I didn't have to do much selling. I mean, they got it. And some of our early angels, they either happened to be part Filipino or they happen to be married to someone that's Filipino. So when I went to them, they were like, ‘Okay, Jake, what are you doing?’ And I told them my story, and he was like, ‘Oh yeah, cool. I don't need samples. I totally get it. How much do you need?’ Versus me going to maybe a traditional VC that, for the sake of matter, is older, rich, white guys, trying to explain, ‘Okay. So the Philippines is here, this is the food we make, we do a sauce.’ So, you have to think about all the barriers you have to bust to get that same amount of dollar check from them versus finding the peers and finding the investors that believe in you and get it. It's a lot less friction. I know it's a lot of work, but I really encourage entrepreneurs to go out there in the network and find those people that jive with you and jive with what you’re trying to build. It's much easier than trying to fight battles that you're never going to win.”

15:27 – Create a minimum viable product
The first year of your launch is challenging, but the important thing to focus on is getting out a minimum viable product.

“The first year of our launch is really getting that minimum viable product in the market and just learning from what consumers said, what retailers said, and what we observed, and taking those learnings, and continually iterate on the product. So, that said, we officially launched in the larger scale just this past fall with Whole Foods Mid-Atlantic. Now we did pretty well, and then we took that success from there we launched on Amazon FBA, Fulfilled By Amazon, and three of our SKUs hit number one on three separate Amazon lists without any marketing and without any spend at all. It's an organic word of mouth from the Filipino American community. And then, from there, we've been blessed with great traction and distribution. I can announce that we'll be going nationwide with sprouts next month, and also it'll be launching in Target this fall. The distribution is exciting, Vasa, but what really excites me is Fila Manila will be the first product that these two chains have ever introduced a Filipino product. And so it's more than just getting jars on the shelf. It's the idea of pioneering this cultural breakthrough in mainstream grocery.”

18:49 – Don’t overspend on your launch
You don’t have to go crazy with spending for your launch because your product will probably go through some changes in the initial launch phase.

“When you launch, don't think you have to go all out, super crazy spend to launch. If you think about Fila Manila, my intention was to come out with a minimum viable product because I knew from my early days with my first startup is it's going to change. So, it doesn't matter if you get the perfect shade of yellow on it. It's going to change. So start out with the most simple, most inexpensive, fastest way to get a product out there. So get some stuff off Amazon, go to your dollar store, and put the product yourself in a federally approved kitchen, and then bring it to the farmer's market and then get people's reaction from it. You don't have to launch in 30 chains and get the free fill and things like that.”

19:32 – Seek out advice from founders
It’s important for founders to network and connect with other people who have walked the entrepreneurial road before them.

“Seek out help where you can't do it yourself. I love the idea of networking. I love the idea of cold calling. So even the fact that those founders reached out to me because they have a list of questions where it's like, ‘Jake, I went on Google, I went on YouTube, I went to the trade shows, I tried to do this research, but I can't seem to find the answer to these three questions. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.’ I love founders that do that research on it. They come to me with these questions that they really get stuck on. And it shows me that they're willing to put in the work to get the questions where they can't figure out and seek out the help to get it done. So I've sought out help from other founders when I was starting up, so I'm more than happy to give advice and help to founders that are coming up as well.”