Founded in 2015 by Carolyn Kim, a Korean American mother and non-profit lawyer, Yobo Soju was born out of a desire to create an elegant soju that resonated with evolving lifestyles and refined tastes.

As the first American hand-crafted soju made in the New York Finger Lakes, Yobo quickly gained recognition, winning awards and becoming renowned for its exceptional taste.

In 2021, John Noe joined the team as an investor and CEO, aiming to propel Carolyn’s vision to new heights. With offerings like Hunni Soju, YoboKish, KTOWN Soju, and Yobo Soju Luxe, they cater to various consumer preferences and occasions, making soju accessible to a wider audience.

Yobo Soju stands out from other brands by choosing to craft their soju from grapes, a departure from the traditional rice-based approach. This unique choice pays homage to Carolyn’s Korean American heritage and the desire to create a more premium and high-quality soju. The result is a velvety smooth liquid with a floral aroma and fruitiness, capturing the attention of cocktail bars and restaurants seeking to elevate their creations.

In an interview with John Noe, he shares his insights into the journey of Yobo Soju and its impact on the spirits market. Join us as we delve deeper into the story behind Yobo Soju and discover the inspiration and passion that drives its success.

HOW YOBO SOJU CAME TO LIFE

Yobo Soju was started in 2015 by Carolyn Kim, a Korean American mother of twins and a non-profit lawyer. At the time, there weren’t many premium soju on the market. While she enjoyed drinking soju in her earlier years, she wanted something that suited her evolving lifestyle and taste.

In a word, she wanted to create a soju that was ‘elegant.’ From that ambition, Yobo Soju was born, the first American hand-crafted soju made in the New York Finger Lakes. Immediately, Yobo won several awards and was touted for being one of the best-tasting soju available. Yobo made its way into top restaurants, cocktail bars, and retail accounts, and was ready to grow. 

In 2021, I joined the team as an investor and CEO to push Carolyn’s vision further. We had a great product and initial distribution but needed to get to the next level. In developing our strategy, we started from the very top and figured we’d work our way down. How do we win over U.S. consumers completely unfamiliar with soju? If we could do that, winning existing soju consumers or lapsed soju consumers would be easy by comparison. From there, the obstacles started to stack.   

Distributor: Will there even be any interest in soju?

Retailer: Where would I even put soju on my shelves?

Bar manager: How do I even serve soju?

Consumer: What is soju? How do I drink it?

Our strategy was to take our single product and to expand into a diverse portfolio that could navigate our obstacles. We created Hunni Soju, a ready-to-drink flavored soju cocktail line, to utilize a more approachable single-serve format. We created YoboKish, a range of unique aperitifs using our soju as its base, to reach mixology enthusiasts at home and at the bar. We created KTOWN soju, a range of all-natural flavored soju made with real fruit juice, as a playful way to drive soju trials in a multi-serve format. And we elevated our original distilled soju, renaming it Yobo Soju Luxe to honor traditional soju making while adding our own Korean American twist. Together, we’ve created a diverse Asian American spirit portfolio that can bring soju to nearly any type of account and occasion.

Together, the portfolio represents a diverse range of Asian American spirits to meet consumers of any level of soju familiarity. Since 2020, Yobo has expanded from 2 SKUs to 18 SKUs and our annual case volume has grown 50x with distribution in over 30 states. The strategy that seemed risky and overly ambitious in 2021 is now beginning to take hold.  

Mass soju is a low-cost product produced at a significant volume that isn’t known for its great taste. But it’s the spirit of Korea, so why couldn’t it be more premium and made of higher quality?

John Noe

USING GRAPES TO CRAFT SOJU

Carolyn was very thoughtful in creating the first Korean American soju. Like her own identity, she wanted to source ingredients that were local to her while paying homage to her history and origin.

At the time, she lived in New York City, and so the idea of using Catawba grapes grown nearby in the Finger Lakes became an interesting choice. There was a disruptive statement to be made as well. In a category dominated by men, how would she represent Korean American women in creating the first soju made in America?

Mass soju is a low-cost product produced at a significant volume that isn’t known for its great taste. But it’s the spirit of Korea, so why couldn’t it be more premium and made of higher quality? Producing soju from grapes resulted in a liquid with a floral aroma, fruitiness, and a velvety smooth finish. Yobo was quickly adopted by cocktail bars and restaurants that wanted to create higher-end cocktails with soju. Consumers lauded its taste and Yobo gained a niche following.

Since then, we moved our operations to California and updated the branding, packaging, and formula for our flagship soju now called Yobo Soju Luxe. The formula change is one we didn’t take lightly. Moving to California not only gave us the ability to source grapes from California but to source rice as well. After much trial and error and countless recipes, we ended up with the current Yobo Soju Luxe formula made from organic wheat, California rice, and California grapes. It’s a blend that combines the best of each of those ingredients giving us a soju that’s impossibly smooth and almost creamy while representing what we believed to be truly Korean American.

PRODUCTION PROCESS AND STANDARDS

The majority of our products are produced in Ventura, California with our distiller.

The process is a labor of love where our formulas are distilled, mixed, and batched by our master distiller. Each bottle is inspected by hand and packed. But the part of the process that’s been the biggest adventure has been the formulation process.

Creating YoboKish, the collaborative name of our venture with Kristen Kish, took almost two years. We started the project with a completely blank canvas and no restrictions. What would a Top Chef winner do? We gave Kristen free rein and the project evolved through several iterations as we experimented with flavors, formats, and concepts. Eventually, we landed on the flavor profile Kristen loves most, bringing contrasting flavors together like bitter and sweet:

• SHINE – kumquat, rose, and ginger because kumquat is her favorite fruit. 
• BLISS – sour cherry, pink peppercorn, and licorice because Kristen grew up in Michigan and loved licorice as a kid.
• EARTH – smoked mushroom umami because she’s a celebrity chef and she flexes.
• SEOUL – hibiscus, lemon balm, and raw honey because her wife Bianca has a nightly ritual of drinking hibiscus tea in a similar fashion (hence the name, SEOUL for the city where Kristen was born and SOUL for her soulmate, Bianca).

They’re each sweet and bitter, but soft and balanced at the same time. They’re all-natural and have no artificial coloring or flavors. And they provide mixologists with Top Chef-like ingredients to create an array of imaginative cocktails.

DIFFERENT OFFERINGS TO CATER DIFFERENT CONSUMER PREFERENCES

There is a distinct ritual to drinking soju.

Its smaller bottles and lower proof allow bottles to be easily consumed among a group of friends. Once a bottle is opened, it’s shared and poured, two hands pour, and two hands receive as it’s passed around the table until it’s empty. At Korean barbeque, singing karaoke, or out clubbing, the occasion for soju is a social one.  

While we want our soju to be a part of all those rituals and occasions, we wanted to design our products for new occasions that would help us cross cultures.

In Yobo Soju Luxe, we wanted to create a celebratory bottle and liquid, one that could be gifted as a present or opened to commemorate an accomplishment.

In YoboKish, we wanted to create a ‘professional’ product for more advanced mixologists and cocktail enthusiasts.

In Hunni Soju, we wanted a format that would be conducive for trial, a single-serve, easy-to-drink, flavored soju that people could grab and go – to the beach, a picnic, golfing, and more.

And in KTOWN Soju, we wanted to take everything we’ve ever loved about eating and drinking in Korea town and take the experience of KTOWN to wherever the bottle goes. In fact, the design of the glass is made to look like a flask and the liquid is fruity, sweet, and welcoming to any first-time soju drinker.

WHAT SETS YOBO SOJU APART

Most people don’t realize that soju is the largest-selling spirit in the world by volume, outselling vodka, tequila, and whiskey in total cases. Despite its market size, most soju on the market are very similar – inexpensive liquid housed in small green bottles.

It wasn’t until more recently that more premium soju products arrived. But what makes our full line of products unique is our identity as a Korean American company and brand. There’s a generational shift in thinking about what soju could be in the United States and we intend to produce soju that is as beautifully designed as any other spirit you’d find on the shelf and of the highest quality.

Our glass is custom. Our liquid is all-natural and free from artificial coloring, flavors, or sweeteners. While we do our best to communicate our differences through our marketing communications, the best proof is when somebody tries our soju. If you’ve had other soju before, the difference is unmistakable.

JOHN’S GOALS AND VISION FOR YOBO SOJU

I started as CEO in 2021 and since then we’ve accomplished so much. The business has grown 50x in annual case volume with the expansion of its portfolio and is now distributed in more than 30 states. We’re about to launch major brand collaborations and product integration in the upcoming Joyride movie by Adele Lim.

We’ve poured at places like the Sundance Film Festival and Food & Wine Classic in Aspen. But beyond the business milestones, I believe what we’re doing is significant and will spark the imagination of others to follow. 

Our mission has been to elevate the Korean American spirit by breaking boundaries, from the way we think about the liquid that constitutes soju to the communities we aim to reach. The world doesn’t need another tequila or vodka and yet much of the industry only sees opportunities in large, established markets.

As a Korean American, I know the power of the minority mindset and the impact that can be made by a few. Small is where everyone starts. We had two events just recently, a pride event at a fashion/design studio called Bobblehaus where we showcased KTOWN soju, and Food & Wine in Aspen where we showcased Kristen Kish’s aperitifs.

It was such an amazing experience pouring our drinks for people, explaining soju, introducing our products, and seeing everyone’s reactions. Some might overlook Asian American spirits right now because of its market size or lack of movie star endorsers, but from the view down here, we see a community building around us filled with faces of every identity and color sharing and enjoying soju with us.

THE IMPACT OF YOBO SOJU

The greatest impact Yobo has had is its personal impact on me.

I grew up in a small town in Texas and our family was the first Korean family in our neighborhood. When we arrived, the community of Korean Americans in my elementary school was limited to me and my brother (for the one year we overlapped). For most of my life, I struggled with my own Korean American identity and felt like I needed to find ways to be less ‘Korean’ to succeed.

I’ve had an entrepreneurial career having built and sold an advertising agency before Yobo in an industry where just like my elementary school, I was only one of a few Asian Americans along with my Chinese American partner. We built the agency up and sold it to a French holding company where we continued to grow the business. In that time, we worked with mass, established, ‘American’ brands that played very little in contributing to Asian American identity and culture. We were successful by all business standards, but regretfully, we contributed very little to our Asian American community.

At the time of joining Yobo as its CEO, the stories of hate crimes against Asian Americans started to surface. Here I am, a Korean American CEO of a Korean American company amidst a breakout of hatred toward a community I rarely embraced. It was the unfortunate wake-up call I required to find pride in my identity and to take more roles in paving the way for other Asian Americans more seriously. My Yobo journey has been profound, and instead of hiding my Korean-ness, I’m now on a mission to share it.

We have a few things lined up that I’m excited to share and announce. Beyond launching products and selling them into accounts, we’re here to make a statement. The Yobo organization is very small, a minority among minorities, but we believe we’ll make an outsized impact.

CONNECT WITH YOBO SOJU

Instagram: @yobosoju

Website: yobosoju.com

A successful engineer by day and an entrepreneur by night, that’s what Derek Ting is.

Derek followed his passion for entrepreneurship and launched FREESTYLE a few years back, a brand with the purpose to help and inspire individuals out there to pursue their own path in life through sharing stories, empowering messages, bold designs, and building a community. But he didn’t stop there.

Without a professional experience in the kitchen or background in culinary, but with a dream of sharing Taiwanese cuisine with more people in the world, he brought Little Ding’s to life.

In an interview with Asian Hustle Network, Derek shared insights into his entrepreneurial journey. Join us as we delve into Derek Ting’s remarkable story, uncovering the secrets to his success and the invaluable lessons he has learned along the way.

DEREK’S JOURNEY BOTH AS AN ENGINEER AND ENTREPRENEUR

I graduated back in 2019 with an engineering degree while working to launch my first real brand/business, FREESTYLE, but I wasn’t always into business or entrepreneurship. Before 2015, I thought that being an engineer was “IT” for me. I thought engineering was everything I wanted and everything I would be doing for the rest of my life so I didn’t even think of any other possibility. 

In 2015 I took on my first internship/Co-op after freshman year at IBM/Globalfoundries which was honestly a dream come true for me (I mean what freshman wouldn’t be excited about an opportunity like that?). Little did I know, that experience would change everything for me but in the complete opposite way I thought it would.

Seeing the energy of the people who were there for 20-30 years made me realize I needed to do something else, something different. That was when I read my first book, started taking stocks more seriously, and started trying out a whole bunch of different ventures/ideas/things. And for those of you who don’t know what you want to do yet, it’s okay to not know, but you won’t know unless you go out and try a whole bunch of different things!

Nothing stuck with me until later in college, which was FREESTYLE, but even then I wasn’t anywhere near launch by the time I graduated so I stuck out engineering as a way to support myself while I go on this journey to figure “business” out.

FREESTYLE didn’t take off how I wanted it to and I slowly learned that business in general and then each industry had their own “game” to play but I knew how important it was for me to continue to go through the growing pains. Experience compounds and business principles transfer over to new ventures so it was important I kept going despite not finding “success” so I could keep learning. I don’t believe that I’d be able to do what I’m doing with Little Ding’s today and at the speed we’re going at if I didn’t keep building FREESTYLE.

It’s been 5 years since I started building an actual brand/business and 7 since I started learning about entrepreneurship and I’m only getting started!

Little Ding’s has been something I’ve wanted to build for a long time and the accumulation of all of my past experiences, knowledge, and network is moving us forward and getting us opportunities at a speed that I couldn’t have predicted. It’s been really cool and super mind blowing but again, this is only the beginning, we haven’t even gotten started yet!

I’m blessed that I am also a full-time engineer on the side because being an engineer (specifically in data and analytics), has helped me develop and refine skills necessary in business but not stressed such as the importance of understanding numbers, metrics, and data pertaining to each aspect of the business. Is it hard to do all of the above? Yeah, my entire life at this moment is just work… but I love it.

PUSHING THE LIMITS

In the process of building FREESTYLE and Little Ding’s, I learned that limits are self-imposed.

I’m a huge dreamer, and I love challenges. The process and hardships of entrepreneurship, which are basically personal development, helped me to discover that every time I pushed myself to what I thought was my limit, I could handle more, and once I realized that the playbook was entirely up to me, I went kind of crazy (in a good way of course).

For example, I launched Little Ding’s in October of 2022. We then did ONE small event in November and ONE event in January. How were we able to handle the largest food events on the west coast, back-to-back weekends, and even introduce a new menu item? Because that’s exactly what we did when we did the Water Lantern Festival, into the first and second Foodieland, the first 626 Mini Night Market, the first We Bridge Expo in Vegas into more and more up to now, where within 8 months of even existing, we are coming for the main 626 events in SoCal!

STAYING TRUE TO THE FLAVORS OF AUTHENTIC TAIWANESE CUISINE

My goal with Little Ding’s is to bring Taiwanese food out to more of the world, and so doing that means the food I focus on has to be somewhat relatable between cuisines such as Taiwanese popcorn chicken, where almost everyone has some idea of what popcorn chicken is, but maybe not necessarily Taiwanese popcorn chicken.

When thinking about new food items to add, I’m envisioning myself taking a stroll through Taiwan’s night markets and seeing which foods are popular that I remember the taste of and would be easily accepted in the States.

When it comes to testing recipes, I gather a ton of different online recipes and lay out all of the ingredients that are being used to figure out what each ingredient adds to the recipe and then slowly test out the ratios until the taste brings me back to the streets of the night market.

I may not come from a culinary background or know a ton about ingredients but I have good taste buds and I can remember taste even if I didn’t know what made it.

The reality is that, it is a LOT of testing and as much as everyone around me enjoys the food I make and the recipes I created, I myself got a bit sick of them because I ate each item that I tested multiple times a day for weeks before I got the recipes to where I wanted them AND THEN I would continue to adjust as I got feedback from all of my guinea pigs *cough* I mean friends, in Vegas.

It’s a bit easier now because I have a team so I don’t have to eat as much of my own food over and over again but it’s still a lot of testing especially to stay true to the flavors of authentic Taiwanese cuisine.

OVERCOMING HURDLES

The more I zoom out, the smaller the stumbles become.

Derek Ting

I love challenges in general so I actively seek them out for us to take on and I think almost every event we’ve done was a challenge because every single one was unique.

But in terms of the challenges we’ve faced where things went wrong or weren’t great for us, a lot of it comes down to the long-term vision and how focused you are on it. We came out swinging when we launched Little Ding’s and crushed our first event. We thought it would be like that for other events too but we were met with two financial losses in a row, one of them being -$2,700 which hurt really bad especially when we’re just getting started and every dollar meant more.

So this is where the long term vision comes in. If I look at the 3-month timeline, we’re absolutely broken. We invested thousands, made some back at the first event, and then dug a deeper ditch with the next two events. If I look at the 6-month timeline, well okay we have Foodieland and 626 Vegas coming up, and we have a good chance of making those losses up at those events. If I look at the 2-year timeline, we should have 1-2 stores open by then with catering clients set and be doing multiple events a weekend.

The more I zoom out, the smaller the stumbles become. Even if they hurt a ton at the time. Another thing I will note is that as a founder or leader, you can’t break… at least not in front of your team. It’s good to be transparent with how business is doing but even in those moments, you have to excite your team.

And there are of course countless challenges with doing outdoor events especially not having done any yourself but those typically come down to how fast you can think on the spot and how well you can adapt to situations which honestly becomes second nature after enough practice.

OTHER VENTURES DEREK IS INTERESTED IN EXPLORING

I have a ton of ideas in my head that I want to eventually build out, including a sister shop to Little Ding’s focused on Taiwanese desserts, a co-working space with incubator access, with access to investors, schools similar to the one founded by the Blue Man Group in Manhattan, universal educational platforms for everyone, and I do want to get into Esports but that one is more of a “for fun” project.

HOW DEREK DEFINES SUCCESS

Success to me has changed a lot throughout the years and a lot of it had to do with the friends I have around me.

Before, success to me was making a ton of money to buy my parents and myself nice things and not having to work anymore. Now, success to me is being able to create without anything holding you back.

Create businesses, opportunities, and experiences for those around you. That’s what I care about and want to do and there’s some debt I have to pay off first but honestly, I think I’ll be successful as long as I can get both myself and businesses in the green because after that, I’ll have some money to do more of the above!

ESSENTIAL QUALITIES OR SKILLS FOR ENTREPRENEURS

The essential qualities or skills I believe every entrepreneur should have or be working on are: communication and vision, humility, adaptability and decision-making, mental fortitude and perseverance, and patience and optimism.

I think the ones I grouped together work hand in hand!

Communication should include vision because your team should always know where you’re going as a company and where they’re going/where they can go within the company. Drop your ego, you don’t know as much as you think you do, and listening can save you time, money, and resources.

Being able to adapt pretty much means making a decision to change on the spot but both are important and practice helps a lot here.

You have to have the mental fortitude to push through because it’s not easy (principles are simple but insanely hard to master).

The last one is patience where you have to be patient with the results of your work since it might not show up for years and that plays in with optimism because you have to see that you will succeed (the “light”) otherwise you might need to re-evaluate your current trajectory.

CONNECT WITH DEREK

IG: 

Derek Ting – @duhricehero 

Little Ding – @littledingscafe

FREESTYLE – @frstyleofficial

Websites/Blogs:

Little Ding’s – littledingscafe.com

Little Ding’s Blogs (Medium) – @littledingscafe 

FREESTYLE – frstyleofficial.com

FREESTYLE Podcast – Spotify