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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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Stories

How Christopher Thang Juggles Medical School and Entrepreneurship With Time Optimization Strategies

You don’t really need to feel motivated to start — you just need to start! (easier said than done, right?)

While it’s also important to understand why you put off doing something and what causes it, what’s even more important is overcoming it.

Christopher Thang is a medical student at the University of Texas Medical Branch. He is also an Online Fat Loss Specialist certified by the National Academy of Sports Medicine.

His current mission is to help busy working professionals lose 15+ lbs in 60 days with his Progressive Eating Strategy and fitness-lifestyle optimization systems.  

Read through as Christopher shares how he manages his time as both a full-time medical student and entrepreneur.

The Chronic Procrastinator

Now, I am not saying I have the busiest schedule out there, and I definitely do not. But, I’ve included a breakdown of my time-saving strategies below that help me find time to work on my business, study for medical school exams, and travel across the US to meet clients.

My deep dive into time management started in college. I was a chronic procrastinator and always rushed to meet deadlines the night before they were due. This left me super anxious and my disorganized tendencies, unfortunately, caused me to arrive late to almost everything. It got so bad that I showed up late to or forgot about work meetings, social events, and even important family gatherings.

Eventually, I had enough of winging my schedule every day (some days I didn’t even know I had tasks due). I tried countless things to improve my time management, and after a few years of trial and error (still ongoing), I came up with these 3 approaches that helped.

I was a chronic procrastinator and always rushed to meet deadlines the night before they were due. This left me super anxious and my disorganized tendencies, unfortunately, caused me to arrive late to almost everything.

-Christopher Thang

Strategy 1: Time Block Everything

Simply put, I time block my entire day out on Google Calendar as the day goes along. It may sound intense, and it honestly is… But, after I delegate tasks, meetings, and other life events, I gain structure and peace of mind for the day. I’m also able to look back at each day to see what I can be more efficient on.

Now, I don’t time block out every single minute of each day a week in advance (would be overwhelming), but I plan ahead for important events. By including things such as meal prep, working out, and business meetings, I can make a micro-commitment beforehand to fit these things into my schedule.

On the day of such events, I time block my day in 15, 30, or 1 hour+ chunks. Once I gain control and understanding of my time, I leverage it to do more work in less time throughout the day (of course, I have to be realistic when time blocking out tasks). I’m also able to enjoy social events, family time, and travel without worrying about work which brings me to Strategy 2.

Strategy 2: 100% Work or 100% Relaxation

Building off of Strategy 1, I stick to a hard rule of either working 100% or relaxing 100%. I take every effort to avoid the gray area in between, where I’d end up working inefficiently or trying to relax (and failing) because work is on my mind.

So, on my calendar, I include 15-minute blocks labeled “Break” (when I’m dividing up work into several chunks using the Pomodoro Method) and long hours blocked off for “Social Events” or “Family Time.”

Of course, life happens frequently, and sometimes events may take longer/shorter than expected or something may come up that interrupts my entire schedule. This brings me to Strategy 3 below.

Strategy 3: Plan Ahead, But Be Flexible

Whenever something unexpected happens, I time block it out in my calendar and shift everything down (Google Calendar lets me click and drag events around on my phone really easily).

Sometimes I shift down tasks so much that I have to move them on to the next day (if possible), but I remind myself to stay realistic if life suddenly hits on some days.

Connect with Christopher 

Now, I didn’t develop these approaches overnight, and they took time to develop into daily habits.

However, I hope my strategies would be able to inspire others to stay mindful of their time and perhaps try some of my approaches to elevate their personal lives and hustles.

Linkedin: Christopher Thang

Instagram: @christopher.thang

Website: https://www.hgbtconsulting.com/free-case-study

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