Twrl Milk Tea Co-Founder & CMO Olivia Chen Shares Essential Lessons On Setting Foot In Famed Retailer Costco - AHN Media Group

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September 23, 2022

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Two mom-friends and milk tea lovers Olivia Chen and Pauline Ang have capitalized on the early success of their milk tea company by sending samples to the head office in Costco which lead to launching their product with the retail giant in just three and a half months.

“We are still pinching ourselves that our Twrl’s Taiwan-Style Black Milk Tea is now in Southern California Costco!” Olivia says, “We’re starting with 3 locations: Irvine, Monterey Park, and Tustin (2700 Park Avenue).” 

Pauline (left) and Olivia (right)

They overcame it without calling in a broker to help them. It wasn’t easy at all, however, this exemplifies the importance of hard work and perseverance of the duo to learn every step of the way for their small business to set foot in one of the world’s largest retail stores.

Olivia enthusiastically shares with Asian Hustle Network the timeline of how their plant-based Twrl Milk Tea made it into Costco to help entrepreneurs navigate the highly competitive food and beverage space. 

Roadshow Or Small Rotation

We met our buyer at Expo West (Think Super Bowl for the Food & Beverage industry where retailers and manufacturers meet up. Super worth doing if you are in CPG. We even landed our 1st TV interview).

After Expo West, we sent more samples to the office and began negotiations for placement. We were offered two ways of being at Costco:

Roadshow

  • 4 days of selling on consignment. We could control costs by using our own people and decide the volume of product we wanted to bring in.
  • Typically, this is how small brands enter Costco. If it does well, you are offered a rotation. If you don’t do well, then it’s really hard to get into the regular set.

Small Rotation

  • We started with a number of stores and the item is part of the regular set.
  • This is harder to secure because Costco is paying for the inventory and the buyer has to believe in your product.

In both situations, it is critical that Twrl Milk Tea sells well and ideally sells out. Why is this important?

It proves to the Costco Buyer that there is a market for our better-for-you plant-based milk teas. More importantly, companies owned by Asian American small business owners like ours are proven to be great partners worth investing time in and onboarding.

Reasons For Opting for Small Rotation

After a few weeks of due diligence on our end, we decided to go with a small rotation. Our reasons were simple:

  • Our manufacturer could produce the volumes needed and in the time we needed. Not always the case in this crazy supply chain. We are made in the USA so it makes a huge difference in our speed for delivery.
  • We could handle the financial obligations to fund the inventory. It’s a lot of money upfront so it’s not a light decision for a smaller company like ours. And, there is still a chance you can be sitting on inventory if it does not sell through.
  • We are committed to Costco and wanted to be part of the regular set and did not want to take the chance that with Roadshow which is only 4 days could be a bust due to so many variables that we may not be able to control.
  • We love Costco ourselves and shop there regularly so we saw our consumers there! Did you know the typical Costco shopper is 35-44 years old, an Asian female making $125,000 and the average trip is $114?!

Roadshow which is only 4 days could be a bust due to so many variables that we may not be able to control.

-Olivia Chen

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

What flavor to sell?

Out of our 3 flavors, we selected Taiwan-Style Black Milk Tea to launch because it’s one of our best sellers and our Taiwan-Style Black Milk Tea flavor is really unique. Our single-origin loose-leaf black tea is a one-of-a-kind varietal, sourced from a small multi-generational family farm on a misty slope, fed by sweet mountain spring water.

Our tea flavor, aroma, and health benefits are un-parallel to anything on the market. We use pea milk and lightly sweetened our teas with organic agave so our tea flavors really come through. Only 45 calories & 6g of sugar per can.

What would the packaging look like?

Packaging design and sourcing begin for Costco. Luckily for us, Pauline Ang is a seasoned graphic design guru (with 15+ years in the food and beverage packaging for Fortune 500 companies) and designs all our packaging in-house so we could save costs and time here!

How to onboard?

Mountains of paperwork for our two-person team begin. We didn’t use a broker and did everything ourselves. Yes, a broker would have been so incredibly helpful to answer all the questions that we didn’t know the answers to and definitely would have saved us some headaches.

Big Takeaways

  • Don’t be afraid to chase the account you want to be in. Don’t be shy about sharing your vision of where you see the company. Special thanks to Ryan Sung of Honolulu Cookie Company and Vincent Kitirattragarn of Dang Foods for talking to us about their journey with Costco and encouraging us to go for it.
  • It can be done without a broker but not without headaches and some huge learning curves and we did make some mistakes along the way.
  • Have an advocate. We have been super lucky that our buyer has been so incredible to work with and it’s important to have such an advocate in the company. Cannot over-emphasize this enough!
  • Your team matters. Grateful to share this journey with Pauline Ang who is such an amazing friend and business partner. We are two moms that love Milk Tea and simply wanted to make milk tea —a quintessential Asian drink that we love—even better.

Don’t be shy about sharing your vision of where you see the company.

-Olivia chen

Connect with Olivia and Pauline

Your support would mean the world to our small business and the small family farms that use sustainable practices for a tea that’s better for you, and better for the planet. Follow our journey: Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Twitter

Twrl Warehouse

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ChargerGoGo’s Next Chapter: GoGoSpark Brings AI-Powered Entrepreneurship to the Future of Work

ChargerGoGo built its nationwide phone charging network by betting on everyday entrepreneurs.

That bet is paying off. In 2026, ChargerGoGo landed at No. 744 on the Inc. 5000 (top 15%), No.5 in Las Vegas, and No.41 in AI and Data industry, the annual ranking of the fastest-growing private companies in America, after reporting 467% revenue growth over three years.

Led by founder and CEO June Zhu, the company has spent years helping local operators build businesses through its charging network. With GoGoSpark, it’s bringing AI into the picture.

Launched at CES 2026, GoGoSpark is ChargerGoGo’s AI-powered business copilot and operations assistant, built to help operators handle the day-to-day work of running and growing their businesses.

What Does GoGoSpark Actually Do?

As AI reshapes the workforce, the next economic opportunity is not only about making employees more productive, it is about giving more people the tools to become business owners.

GoGoSpark was built around that mission.

ChargerGoGo believes the future of work will include a growing number of people, across both white-collar and blue-collar professions, who want to build independent income, own productive assets, and operate businesses of their own. But becoming an entrepreneur requires far more than capital or a good idea. New business owners need help with sales, operations, financial decisions, technology, strategy, and the hundreds of decisions that come with running a company.

GoGoSpark is designed to put that capability in their pocket.

Serving as an AI-powered COO and business mentor available 24/7, GoGoSpark can help entrepreneurs analyze performance, identify opportunities, improve sales, troubleshoot operational issues, understand financial decisions, and determine what actions to take next.

The vision extends beyond operating ChargerGoGo stations. ChargerGoGo is building GoGoSpark as an intelligent business platform that can lower the barriers to entrepreneurship and help everyday people transition from employees into capable, technology-enabled business owners.

In an economy increasingly shaped by AI and automation, ChargerGoGo believes AI should not simply replace work. It should help more people create, own, and participate in the businesses of the future.

GoGoSpark does not replace the entrepreneur. It gives the entrepreneur a COO, an advisor, and a mentor in their pocket—so they can make better decisions and build with greater confidence.

Five Years in the Making

GoGoSpark came out of five years of working directly with thousands of operators, partners, and small business owners.

Over that time, ChargerGoGo saw the same kinds of questions come up again and again: How do I sell this better? Why is one location outperforming another? What should I focus on next? How can I run this more efficiently?

Those real-world questions helped shape what GoGoSpark became.

Rather than building AI for the sake of having AI, ChargerGoGo built a tool around the work its operators were already doing.

As Zhu said when the platform launched, “GoGoSpark is built to be a business co-pilot, helping operators learn faster, operate smarter, and participate in the post-work economy.”

The Bigger Goal Behind GoGoSpark

The Inc. 5000 ranking is a milestone for ChargerGoGo, but Zhu has been clear that she wants the company’s growth to reach beyond ChargerGoGo itself.

When the ranking was announced, she pointed to a bigger goal: giving ChargerGoGo’s Distribution Partners the technology, infrastructure, business model, and support to grow companies of their own.

She even said she hopes to one day see those entrepreneurs make the Inc. 5000 themselves.

GoGoSpark is one way ChargerGoGo is trying to make that happen.

As AI becomes part of how companies sell, analyze data, plan, and operate, smaller business owners risk being left with fewer resources to compete. GoGoSpark brings some of those capabilities directly to the people running businesses on the ground.

ChargerGoGo’s acceptance into the NVIDIA Inception Program also marks another step in that direction as the company continues developing its AI technology.

“The future belongs to those who engage with their AI,” Zhu said at CES 2026. “Our mission is to make sure everyone has that chance.”

ChargerGoGo made the Inc. 5000 this year. If its operators eventually start appearing on that list too, GoGoSpark may have played a part in getting them there.

Discover how GoGoSpark is helping entrepreneurs grow smarter.

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The Day a Las Vegas Slot Machine Changed June Zhu’s Vision for Entrepreneurship

When June Zhu immigrated to the United States, she wasn’t chasing certainty.

She was chasing the possibility.

Like millions of immigrants before her, she believed in something uniquely American: that regardless of where someone came from, if they worked hard, solved real problems, and created value for others, they could build a better future.

That belief led her to found ChargerGoGo.

At first glance, ChargerGoGo looks like a portable phone charging company. Today, its network spans more than 6,000 locations across all 50 states, serving more than one million users.

But ask June what business she’s really building, and her answer is unexpected.

“I’m not trying to just build the biggest charging network,” she says. “I’m trying to build one of the largest entrepreneurship platforms.”

The Question Every Founder Faces

That vision wasn’t obvious in the beginning.

Like countless founders, June spent years trying to answer the same question that keeps entrepreneurs awake at night:

How do you build something nationally without billions of dollars from venture capital?

Every new market required more equipment.

Every new customer required more investment.

Growth always seemed tied to raising more capital.

The Las Vegas Moment

Then one ordinary afternoon in Las Vegas, while talking with her team, she witnessed something that unexpectedly gave her a new perspective.

A few teammates each pulled a small amount of cash from their wallets and decided to play a slot machine together.

Nobody risked very much.

If they lost, the downside was limited to a few hundred dollars each. But if they won, everyone shared in a prize far greater than they could have won individually.

“It wasn’t about the slot machine,” June recalls with a smile. “It was about the ownership.”

She watched people willingly contribute because everyone had a stake in the outcome.

At that moment, the question in her mind changed.

Instead of asking, “How can I raise enough money to own every charging station?”

She started asking, “Why should I own them all?”

What if every charging station could become an income-producing asset for a local entrepreneur?

That idea transformed ChargerGoGo.

Rather than building a company that owned every charging station, June built a platform where local entrepreneurs could own, operate, and grow businesses under a shared brand.

Every charging station became more than hardware. It became an opportunity for someone to build recurring income and grow a business within their own community.

Building an Entrepreneurship Platform

For June, that model reflects something she has admired since arriving in America.

“The greatest strength of this country isn’t just innovation,” she says. “It’s that ordinary people have the opportunity to become builders.”

Instead of measuring success solely by the size of the network, she measures it by how many entrepreneurs it helps create.

Through ChargerGoGo’s distribution partner model, local business owners can build recurring income while expanding the company’s nationwide footprint. As the platform grows, so does the number of entrepreneurs building businesses of their own.

Why Ownership Matters More Than Ever

That belief feels even more relevant as artificial intelligence reshapes the global workforce.

While much of the conversation focuses on jobs disappearing, June believes the more important conversation is about creating more owners.

“The future shouldn’t belong only to companies with the most capital or the most powerful AI,” she says. “Technology should lower the barriers for everyday people to own businesses, generate wealth, and create opportunities for their families.”

That’s why she believes entrepreneurship is becoming more important, not less.

Her vision extends far beyond portable charging.

She imagines a future where platforms, AI, and connected infrastructure allow millions of people to own income-producing businesses that once required millions of dollars to build.

Redefining the American Dream

For June, that’s what the American Dream has always meant.

Not that success is guaranteed.

But that ownership is possible.

Today, when people ask what ChargerGoGo does, she could talk about charging stations, technology, or nationwide expansion.

Instead, she prefers a simpler answer.

“We’re building a platform that helps more people become entrepreneurs.”

Because in the end, June Zhu isn’t trying to build a billion-dollar company.

She’s trying to help build thousands of million-dollar entrepreneurs.

Perhaps that’s the most powerful way to measure success: not by how much one person owns, but by how many owners they help create.

Learn more about ChargerGoGo here:

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How Stephanie Lau Jensen Turned a Personal Identity Journey Into CULTR, a Marketplace for Cultural Brands

Stephanie Lau Jensen grew up between Hawaii and California. Like many Asian American kids raised in predominantly non-Asian communities, she learned early how to move between worlds. Parts of her culture stayed in the background, not because she pushed them away, but because the environment made it easier to leave them there.

She later returned to Hawaii for college, where her father is originally from. Being there placed her in a community where Asian culture was woven into daily life through food, language, and family traditions. It was not a rediscovery, it was a reminder of what had always been hers.

Years later, as a mother of three and a founder with a background in commercial real estate investing, she built CULTR, short for Created for Culture. A curated marketplace for AAPI  and third-culture families raising kids between cultures, one that makes cultural products easy to find and part of everyday life, not just special occasions.

A Birthday Conversation That Changed Everything

The idea for CULTR took shape at one of Stephanie’s birthday gatherings. She was talking with a close friend about identity and culture when a childhood friend overheard the conversation and joked that Stephanie used to be one of them before she moved to Hawaii and really leaned into her Asian side.

Everyone laughed. Stephanie included. But the comment stayed. It put words to something she had been sitting with for years. Culture is not something that automatically transfers to the next generation. It has to be lived daily. If it is not in the house on a regular Tuesday, it probably is not there at all.

When she became a mother and started looking for books, clothing, and toys that reflected her culture, she saw the problem clearly. The products existed. The founders were there, but their work was scattered across small websites and Instagram pages, invisible to most families who needed them.

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Stephanie’s background in real estate investing trained her to look closely at markets and recognize opportunity gaps. As she continued discovering founder-led cultural brands online, she saw a clear problem: families who wanted these products had no easy way to find them.

That realization led her to build CULTR, a curated marketplace that brings modern cultural brands from around the world into one central destination. The platform highlights independent founders, many from Asian and immigrant communities, whose products carry culture through everyday objects, from children’s books to home goods, apparel, even everyday products you would have never known were made by AAPI makers. With a refined, modern aesthetic, CULTR presents these brands in a way that feels contemporary, approachable, and deeply connected to heritage.

Building CULTR came with its own challenges because the platform did not fit neatly into an existing category. It sits somewhere between a retail marketplace and a cultural storytelling platform, which meant Stephanie had to develop the platform while also helping people understand the vision behind it.

Bringing Culture Into Everyday Family Life

For Stephanie, culture often lives in the smallest everyday objects. A children’s book written in the language your grandparents spoke, a toy tied to tradition, or a piece of clothing that carries a story can shape how the next generation understands identity and belonging.

Alongside CULTR, she is also building PenPals Collective, a project designed to spark global curiosity and connection for children, and launching a podcast called Series M that explores career, motherhood, and identity. Each project reflects her interest in connecting people across culture, family, and generation.

Through each project, and while raising three young children, Stephanie continues working toward the same goal: creating spaces where culture is not something people rediscover later in life, but something families live with every day.

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Billionaire Heir Enters Wall Street’s Hottest Trade With $480B in Assets

Andre Koo Jr. isn’t just inheriting a financial empire, he’s also reshaping what it looks like in a new era of investing. 

From Taiwan to New York, his latest move brings a centuries-old legacy into one of Wall Street’s fastest-growing spaces. 

With K8 Capital, he’s betting that the future of wealth lies in doing more than just one thing well.

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Building on a Financial Legacy

Andre Koo Jr. grew up in one of Taiwan’s most influential banking families, where scale and stability defined success. Today, that legacy spans a $16 billion family fortune and control of $480 billion in assets. But instead of staying within that system, he’s building something that looks very different.

K8 Capital, his new firm based in New York, is designed to be more flexible and forward-looking. It’s launching with a debut fund of at least $50 million, with a $500,000 minimum that signals who it’s built for. The focus is on US companies, along with early bets on AI and enterprise software, areas where growth is still taking shape.

Image Source: Sally Ride Science

A Dual Investment Approach

K8 is a fully integrated hybrid private credit and venture capital firm, combining short-duration, high-yield credit investments with long-term venture growth. Its dual strategy is designed to deliver both liquidity and capital appreciation, giving investors access to predictable income while still capturing venture upside.

What sets K8 apart is how it brings two distinct investment styles into one platform. It focuses on short-term credit deals that can generate returns relatively quickly, while also investing in startups that may take years to mature but offer strong long-term potential. This allows investors to earn steady income today while staying exposed to the companies shaping the future.

Image Source: @andrejrkoo (Instagram)

Entering a Rapidly Growing Market

Private credit has quietly grown into a market worth more than $1.5 trillion, as companies look beyond traditional banks for funding. Wealthy families like the Koos are moving in, seeing an opportunity to lend directly and capture higher returns.

K8 is already showing early signs of traction, with reported returns of at least 50 percent from short-term loans to US businesses. But for Andre, this isn’t just about performance. It’s also about carrying forward a legacy that began nearly 200 years ago with his ancestor Koh Lay Huan, while making sure it still matters in a very different financial world.

Learn more about K8 Capital here:

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