Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in food and beverage but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Theo Lee, Co-Founder, and CEO of KPOP Foods, Inc., located in Los Angeles, CA, USA.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
KPOP Foods is an energetic Korean food brand with a line of chef-crafted sauces and premium roasted seaweed snacks. We started KPOP Foods while in business school at UCLA to increase the awareness and accessibility of Korean food and flavors and debuted on Kickstarter in 2017 and raised nearly $40,000 for our first product, KPOP Original Korean Chili Sauce. The following year, celebrity chef Chris Oh joined our team and helped us fill out our product line with several new sauces, including our infamous Kimchi Mayo. From what started as a classroom project, we're now a top seller on Amazon and available in over 3,000 different stores throughout the US.
Tell us about yourself
The idea for KPOP Foods came as my co-founder, Mike Kim, and I were constantly taking our friends and classmates out to Koreatown in Los Angeles - they always love the food, from Korean BBQ to the classic stews and side dishes or ban chans, as well as the experience and energy. They began asking us if they could find some of the ingredients closer to where they lived, and that's when it really hit us - the inaccessibility of so many amazing Korean foods and flavors. So after several late-night working sessions and talks, we created a business plan and submitted it to be our senior thesis for our MBA program, and soon enough, we had a business.
Today, we still believe in the initial mission of sharing Korean food and flavors to bring people together and uplift spirits. We're always happy to hear about people trying our products, especially if they're new or haven't had a lot of Korean food - we hope we serve as the gateway into the wonders of Korean food and flavors.
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
One of our biggest accomplishments was being acquired by Wooltari USA, an importer of premium frozen and shelf-stable Korean food products. It was always a goal to eventually be acquired, and today, we have more resources and product development capabilities and have some big things planned for the coming months.
What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?
They're always so many things to do with a limited amount of time - from fundraising, product development, hiring, marketing campaigns, and revenue growth - it can quickly get very overwhelming, so it's incredibly important to have an amazing team. I'm incredibly fortunate to have Mike Kim as my co-founder because without him; there's no way KPOP Foods would be where it is today. The same goes for Chef Chris Oh, our Head of Product, as well as all the other members of our team that grow and expand our business. Finding the right employees and the team is hard, and I'm incredibly fortunate to have an amazing team to lean on - at the same time, it's also very scary and hard being responsible and in charge of your employee's careers, payroll, and more - it's constant stress.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
Find an amazing co-founder and team, find ways to test ideas quickly without overanalyzing, and be ready to prioritize and delegate.
Is there anything else you'd like to share?
Starting a business and entrepreneurship is an incredible journey as you get to work on something built from scratch. With that, there are going to be a lot of ups and downs, so do your best to find activities or ways to destress and decompress.
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://www.kpopfoods.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kpopfoods/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kpopfoods/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/kpopfoods/
If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.
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