 This is S.A.R.P. Restore Front. Remember when we were all making sourdough bread to pass the time during lockdown? Our guests today were also cooking something up in their kitchen, but it was much sweeter and designed to be more of a long-term play than a short-term way to occupy their time. Sean Orgonian and Vic and Kijijian were fulfilling a long-time mission to start a business together. And with the coronavirus pandemic upending everyone's best-laid plans, there really was no better time to take that first step. So the two childhood friends created their own candy. They mixed together a blend of spices, developed a base, put them together, and called it chili chews. And after testing their recipe on friends and family, they set their sights on making the grocery store candy aisle exciting again. So listen in as we cover everything from why they chose a name that was purposefully vague, running into discrimination from those who thought they were too young to be taken seriously, and why their candy tastes like the San Fernando Valley in all of the best ways. Now, on to the episode. All right, welcome to the podcast on today's show. We're talking to Chili Chews. Thanks for coming. Either one of you can start the question. People who don't know, what does your company do? So we're Chili Chews. We're a two-year-old company. We make sweet, sour, spicy candy, all in one delicious bite. Takes your taste buds on a roller coaster. And yeah, so what we do is we have our base gummy, and we quote that in our secret chili blend, add a little spice in there, add a little bit of sauce, and it really is one of the best gummies you'll ever have. Definitely. People who've never tried this type of gummy are like, what's chili candy? That sounds disgusting. Sweet, sour, doesn't really go together. Add a little spice, it sounds kind of weird, but we've been realizing, people try it for the first time, they're like, this is interesting, and then you'll see their repeat customers over and over again, and they go through that bag pretty quick. That's awesome, it's definitely intriguing. I'll say that much like when I see you in the packaging, I go, oh, I want to try it, I want to figure it out. And so it's a good way to hook people. What made you guys want to start this company, this crazy, first of all, being in the candy business just sounds super fun. But what made you guys want to actually go from, let's make our own little small batch to a legit, make a company. It's kind of started when both of us, we've known each other since we were like four years old, we've been best friends since we were little, and we grew up in the San Fernando Valley where spicy products are just very popular, and we love these types of candies, so we would go looking for them, go to the gas station, try to find these small little things, but growing up, you kind of realize these packages are kind of untrustworthy, like you don't know what's in this product, like stuff like that, so we decided to try it at home, and we're still young, and we would make our own renditions of it using different types of candies, and it would be delicious, and we would love them, so we'd just make it for ourselves. And then it came time we were in college, he was going to UC Santa Barbara, I was going to UC Irvine, and we both had this idea, like our whole lives, we want to start a company together, and it kind of led to the last, for our last quarter, COVID started, and we all had to go back home, so he came back home from Santa Barbara, I came back home from Irvine, and we're like, what better time to start something, especially with the job marking, depleting, there was nothing, I was applying to so many jobs, I have a finance background, and then I was just like, all right, we got to maybe start something, and the first thing we said to each other was like, let's start this candy business, and you know, like in the beginning, everyone's like, don't get into the food industry, it's just a crazy ride, and I'm like, I want to start this, like I know this product that we created years ago would do good in this market, because we still hadn't seen something like this on the market, in stores, in big box retailers. So yeah, that's a little bit of our story. There's a lot of little players in the space, I've learned, but no one really gets there, and I don't know why, I don't know if it's like mentally, they just think it's like a small market, do you guys know anything about the market size? Cause it's not like, it's adjacent, right? The candy kind of? So the market size for like chili candy specifically, we don't know, since it's still kind of like a niche product, especially since we're in LA and California, that's where it's hot, and like Texas and all the Western states, but on the East Coast, they don't have anything like this. So the market size is like kind of tough to determine, but I mean, the spicy candy, spicy food categories has just been like shooting up skyrocketing, and what we've been realizing since the start, because I'll be honest, we weren't even the hundredth spicy candy company to start, but I think we took the proper steps to make our brand legit. I mean, other people were using name brand candies, and they were like... Just coating them in their own mixture? Yeah, so there was a lot of copyright issues. Can you legally do that? Or is it just something you sell on the street? Yeah, it sounds dumb. There's a couple of candy companies that once you buy it in bulk, you can do whatever you want, but we did a lot of research and saw like a lot of candy companies that people sell in stores, it's illegal. They don't have the right licensing or the right trademarks. They don't have the rights to repurpose the candy. And we saw that gap in the market, and we're like, okay, all these people are selling direct to consumer. They're selling at these farmers markets and all these like little mom and pop stores. We wanna target the big boys. How do we get our product into CoreMark? 7-Eleven, Target, Walmart? We realize we have to manufacture our own gummy, make our own like proprietary blend, kinda get the right name out there, make everything legit from the first step. And that was a huge challenge for us because the first year that we started this company, Viken was doing his master's of finance program at Irvine and I was studying for the LSAT and this is in my mom's kitchen during COVID. Yeah, this is so funny. It's just like, me and this guy were just like busting out candy, hundreds of pounds of candy every day and my parents are like, what are you guys doing? But yeah, we just grinded really, really hard for like about the first year. We were working like 10 hour days, not paying ourselves and we just realized there was a bigger purpose here and every business starts to sacrifice. So, it was really mentally straining and we're like, oh, we can go get a different job but we realized and I tell a lot of other people, this too, it just comes to willpower and how much you're willing to sacrifice for yourself, how many hours you're willing to put of your own time in this because to be honest, you can have a job and work on your own company. You're not running a multi-billion dollar company. You have the power to do both at the same time. What's interesting is like at a time when most people are doing sourdough bread during the pandemic, you guys are in your kitchen making candy. And when I think of the available cookbooks on the shelves, there's a cookbook that'll tell you how to make just about every dish out there but I can't remember ever seeing one that dealt with candy before. So, what was that experimentation process like for you guys as you were crafting and refining this recipe? Yeah, so, I mean, the hardest part was making the gummy because we couldn't get it from anywhere else. And this was our first introduction to the food space. We didn't know co-packers, we didn't have mentors so it was just really starting the conversation. Hey, do you know someone in this space? Do you have a contact that knows this person or that person? We did a lot of research online trying to find co-packers, manufacturers, someone that can make this gummy but still believes in our vision and will do it for a low price because we started this company with 500 bucks and we just kept reinvesting and that is the toughest part, finding people you can trust, finding people that'll make you a good product when you're so small. So, where does that first 500 go to? Like, that's a relatively small amount so you gotta be very cautious or conscientious of where you put that capital. So, we started with the first 500 bucks. We did a lot of research, found a couple candy companies that'll allow you to repurpose their candy. So, our first batch was in our own candy we manufactured. We were talking to their buyers and the people running their legal teams asking, hey, can we do this? And they're like, yeah, go for it as long as you're not tarnishing the name, not associating the name, doing your own thing. And we're like, all right, green light, let's do this full force. So, we were making this in my parents' kitchen, literally making it with our hands, with gloves. We had all the right permits. There was nothing sketchy about this. For all the listeners, don't think we were doing anything crazy where everything was right using the right permits. And that's where our first 500 went. We got some candy, made our own blend. A lot of it went into testing and honestly, the first round just went to family and friends. We're like, here, can you taste this? Is it too spicy? Is it too sour? And we realized those people loved it and now we're just gonna go step by step. You tell your friends. So the beginning was a lot of word of mouth. And then we realized, okay, now that we exhausted all of our contacts, everyone, everyone knew. That's when we told, asked my brother-in-law, hey, you know something about brand building. You have a lot of experience in digital marketing. Do you mind coming and helping us out? Because you guys remember how hot ads were during COVID, the beginning part? Yeah, they crushed. Yeah, and he really got us to the next level, him and my sister. And from that point, we've just really been brand building, investing all of our money back into it. And this is our final product. I mean, we can do a side-by-side comparison from our first product to this. It's like a complete... As it should be. I mean, I think people should always be ashamed or embarrassed of their first product. I think that's, if you're not, you're spending way too much time and money holding it secret. So what was the first step? Did you guys go on to like Amazon? Did you guys start a website and just go D to C? What was the first step of trying to get away from your network? Yeah, so I guess the first step was going straight to D to C. That's been our model for the first year and a half, was straight, B to C market. We created our first website and just created an Instagram page, trying to go it organically. And we saw a lot of promise from there, just because of our word of mouth. We were telling our family friends, they were telling their friends and it just kept growing. And we saw a little bit of growth. We got about a thousand people on our Instagram as followers. And we're like, okay, this is slowly growing. And then as we build our website, we reached out to his brother-in-law and we kind of brought him as a partner. And we wanted to grow this thing immensely. We wanted to scale really fast because we saw the promise. We saw how our friends and their friends were reacting to it. So we knew we had a product on our hands that was going to be very popular. So from then on, we invested in creating a better website, getting better pictures on our Instagram and kind of just growing it through paid advertisements. And eventually we opened up a TikTok. We wanted to grow there organically because of how much money we're spending specifically on Instagram. But yeah, that's just been the growth. It was mainly trying to start off just by word of mouth, organically growing our Instagram. But then once we saw this promise that ad spend looks very good and very promising for our product, that's when we dived deeper into making our website better and getting more advertising stuff. And I'll touch on this. I know product shots are the hardest thing in the world. And people don't know it because of shadows and stuff. And so that part of the journey is so difficult and annoying, frankly, because it's so hard to get right. Once you guys were, let's say, getting orders from outside of your friend group, are you guys still at the moment? Are you guys like, oh, let's continue down the LSAT train and business school? Or are you like, what was this internal struggle like? It was, I would say, probably the toughest time of our lives because we were working like 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Like this is like going at it for like 12 hours straight, just going at it. And then he would probably start studying for the LSAT like 10 p.m. I'd probably take a quick nap, start at like 11, do my homework, and then just go to sleep at like 3 a.m. Like it was like a crazy, crazy time period for us. It was mentally struggling and like, but we knew there was something that was worth working for, you know, so. And to piggyback off that, like, I know it's hard to tell because it's our first time talking to everyone, but like, we're go-getters. Like just passing school or doing okay on the LSAT, like wasn't good enough for us. So, Viken crushed his master's program and I wasn't happy with like a 70th or 80th percentile LSAT score. I was like studying like 10 p.m. to like 3 a.m. every night until I got like scored in the 95th, 96th percentile. And I still had to apply to schools this last year and thank God I got into like USC and a bunch of really good law schools out in California and around the country. So we like never settle for like mediocrity and we were just like grinding, pushing like, okay, we believe in this candy company, but we know there's extra hours in the day. We're gonna crush whatever else we have to because this isn't enough for us to settle on. God forbid anything happens because the market can change anytime, especially with food. There's so many things that can go wrong. It could be a bad batch. You can get a recall and especially when you're bootstrapping something, don't have investors. One bad batch can really kill your whole business. Did you ever think about going to get investment or are you in that process? We're thinking about it. I mean, we're doing a really good job of keeping cash flow. We're getting really creative with our distributors, doing really good terms with them, giving them a discount if they pay upfront. So we've been doing really well just understanding their needs and what we can provide to them. So right now we're actively looking for investors, but at the same time, we're just thinking about down the line. We never wanna be in a position where, oh my God, we have a PO like we can't fulfill and now we need to go get an investor because we don't wanna be in the position where we need them more than they want us. We wanna be comfortable, take our time. We know the process can go relatively quick. It also can go relatively slow. So we're looking at different options such as like getting a line of credit or just working with distributors and getting really favorable terms for the both of us. Do you think the story goes that you finished law school or do you think the story goes you drop out of law school? I talked to a business law professor because I went to USC for admit students day and he said it's much easier to drop out of school than have a successful business and then wanna go to school. Because you can always go back. Yeah, I can. So right now I'm just leaving the options on the table. This for sure is my priority, 100%. I think the one thing and the only reason I mentioned LSAT and studying and going to school is that there's a lot of young entrepreneurs out there and I feel like the environment's changing and people are saying you can only do one thing. Is it entrepreneurship? Are you gonna go get a real job? But you can do both in my opinion. I mean, we're a testament to that. We did both, weekend had a full-time job and I don't know, I'm leaving the options on the table but I know whatever it is, I'm gonna give my 110% because I cannot see Chile choose failing first and foremost. I think that's the hard part. If you go investor route, you almost have to quit your jobs or quit whatever you're doing because any investor's gonna say, oh, you're doing this part-time and whether you tell them that you can do three things or 20 things in a day, they'll tell you, I know I do it. And they'll say, and I know more often than not, they'll say, and I know you have to quit your job. It's almost like this hard inflection point and that's why I actually wanted to have you guys on the podcast because I think a lot of people struggle with this point. It can be super awful or it can be super exciting, right? But these two things really coincide and so if you do get capital, it allows you to obviously fly and go faster and start talking to probably like Whole Foods or wherever, like any retailers you wanna be in. Is that the route you guys wanna go or is the route you wanna focus on, D to C online sales at the moment? I think the route we wanna go is more so retailers and nationwide distribution. Right now we're nationwide at Urban Outfitters and we went to our first food show and I mean, we didn't know the power of a food show. At Expo West? No, we went to Fancy Food Show in Vegas back in February and it was just absolutely insane. Like, we're pretty humble guys but I mean, we were the talk of the show. Everyone had our bags in their hands and they were like, oh my God, chili chews, you guys are here, you're doing this, you guys have the best booth and we're nominated for a couple awards out there and we had a couple of huge, huge buyers come to our booth and they loved our products so we're actively talking to them and we wanna take over all of America and it's funny because for us, we thought our product is pretty niche but what we're understanding and what we're pushing for is it's not spicy candy and it's not a niche product. We're competing against all types of candy so we have distributors out in Japan reaching out, they're like, oh my God, I loved your candy, I think people in Japan will love this. We have people in Costa Rica and South America like all over the world, they want this candy in their hands. How long did it take you to come up with the name? Oh, that's the best part about it. It's cause like, honestly like in the beginning when we just started this, we're like, all right, let's think of a special name but also keep it big enough so that we can expand the product line because we had so many ideas in the beginning. Super smart. Yeah, exactly. I know a lot of companies doing this that are like targeting the Latino market and they'll call themselves something Latino related and I think it's the worst thing they could have done. Yeah, honestly, especially like that and also tying it with a name. I feel like you wanna keep it like a fun name that like gets people going like, yeah, I just bought chili juice today. You know, like something that's fun and catchy and like the choose part of it, it just like, we had so many ideas from the start. We wanted to do lollipops, like fruit bars, like it could go into anything, you know? So this is the first thing we wanted to do was gummies because we felt like that was a product that was missing out of all like spicy candy products we would have as like kids. But yeah, like, it's been like, we love the same. Yeah. It's really smart. I see like this on like Nickelodeon. I see you guys having like a game. That would be awesome. Like a game people play. I see like, just like Sour Patch with the, you know, with the characters. That would be awesome. I see you guys easily doing that. You could have an NFT product where like every NFT is a chili chew. Yeah. Different character. Honestly, my dream is those 7-Eleven slot machines whenever you do it. And it's all like the different candies matching up. Every time we go to 7-Eleven, like at the food show, we were at the casino. I was like, V, we have to have this like one day, even if it's a custom one. But yeah, we're pretty open. I mean, a lot of people take their brands and their companies really seriously as you should. But there's some room to have fun and try different things and do it relatively for a cheap price. You don't have to put all your eggs in one basket and invest like a hundred K to doing a project. You can get people like on Fiverr or whatever to just help you out and do something relatively cheap and create something fun and really interactive. And that's what we're trying to do. So one of our core pillars is, is to really create a strong community and like have our customers talk to each other and just be really transparent. Hey guys, this is what's going on with our company right now. This is why maybe some of our orders are slow. They're not coming to you guys fast enough. We're having stock issues or now we can have a sale and explain to them why we can have a sale and just be honest with them because those are my favorite companies. I'm not a fan of the companies that just don't really talk to their customers. I know that can be a hard thing, but at the same time, it's not too hard to have a Discord channel, to have a TikTok where just one representative can just like say like, hey, this is what we're working on. These are the events we're gonna be at. Like feel free to come and stop and talk to us. Do you guys have a Discord channel? That's what we're working on right now. So for the past year and a half, through all of the ads and everything, that's what we've really been building and we have about 100,000 people's emails and contact info and- Strong community for sure. Yeah, yeah. Have you guys been affected by the supply chain? Because I know you just mentioned that you appreciate when companies are upfront and open about it. Have you guys seen any delays in your product or what's that been like for you? The only delay we've really seen is because almost everything about the product is local. The main issue we've seen is just packaging from overseas, just because of COVID, ports get shut down. I don't know if you guys know a lot of trucking companies, they have shortages, there's strikes all over the world and it's extremely, extremely expensive to get packaging domestically, let alone locally. So that's the one thing we had to outsource. So that's the one thing we're having trouble with and I'm honest to all of our customers, to our entire community because it's better that they know and understand rather than be like, where are you guys at? Like, is it your fault? Is it our fault? What's going on with this company? Have you had to raise your prices too because of all that? Unfortunately, our retail price that we go for on our online hasn't changed. We're kind of incurring that cost because we do not want to increase our retail MSRP prices. But it just gets tough when we're talking to some of these big box retailers. I just don't want to disclose any of their names because until the deals, of course, are finished. But it's just tough when I'm changing our cogs and our prices every single month because of like, oh, this shipping price went up or this raw material price went up. It just, it gets difficult, but we just have to flow with it and get the best profit margin for ourselves and of course, how it can benefit the retailer as well. How is the price today? So right now, on our online site, we sell it in packs, so a two-pack, a four-pack and an eight-pack with cost breaks going up. But they retail for $9.99 for a two-pack. And then you get free shipping if you buy an eight-pack and we're really aware it's a premium product, but our customers understand and we don't encourage them to compare, but they naturally compare us to all the other chili gummies on the market and all the other candy. What do they price that? So they're priced about a dollar or two cheaper, but just from their packaging, I don't want to be hateful to any company because that's where we were when we first started and there's potential for people to grow, so it's not, you guys are doing it wrong, you'll never learn. That's just where they are with their business and they'll eventually learn. Like with our home permit, we didn't have to have nutrition facts directly onto the packaging and it's a huge cost, so it's nothing wrong with what they're doing, it's just they'll reach that point and that's something we had to learn and how to make our business more legit and credible and transparent and that's where the price difference kind of comes from. A lot of what you're saying, you guys remind me of like the new entrepreneur. So I've been saying a lot of this for a long time, it's like all this NFTs and all that crypto is like teaching the new entrepreneur basically what success looks like and it's always transparency. And so you're touching on that a lot as it relates to like how you wanna run your community, how you guys wanna share on your Discord, your roadmap. That's like a huge left to like a Microsoft or an Apple or like an IBM, right? And so the reason I'm just saying this out loud is because I want our listeners to also think about that, that it looks different now, right? And COVID accelerated all of this stuff and the new businesses will be like yours. Like the one thing I think crypto and NFTs top people is like reward your first clients. And before it was like a company could get away with giving you 10% off as a coupon, as like a thank you. And now that's laughable. Like that is like if I own a board Ape, I got two for free. Yeah, exactly. And now I just got some Apecoin. And that changed the lives of so many. And so these things are like really interesting as it relates to do we value the customer and how do we actually show that appreciation? Yeah, and that's what we're learning too with, especially our first customers, we wanna do more exclusive drops for them. So if you've purchased from us in the past, you have priority for all of our new flavors and new drops we do once a month. And if you were a distributor that started, let's say last year with us, we're on the phone with them like once a week and we're actively trying to help them because we're very self-aware that with distribution and retailers, they have to be successful for us to be successful. So the success starts with them and we just have to aid them however that is. Do we have to help them with advertising? Do we have to help them with letting the customers in the area know that the retailers have the product now? Do we have to provide them shippers and all these floor displays? Whatever it takes, do we have to drop our prices? We're willing to work with all distributors because like you said, we're a new generation of entrepreneurs. Things at times can be really cutthroat and that's what we're learning. A lot of people are older than us, the people we do business with and sometimes they look down on us. What do they say? Like what's the story? A story, we're working with the Canyon manufacturer and this isn't even like before, it's like right now. So people have been easy on us in the past and understand where we're going, but sometimes we talk to people now and they're like, oh, you guys are 24? Okay, you guys don't get any net terms. You have to be in business with us for three years for us to really give you any type of credit terms. They don't laugh at us in our face, but you can sense there's like some animosity. It's almost like come back when you're older. Yeah, come back when you're older. There's also the upside of that. And we saw that during the Fantasy Food Show. It was like an inspiring story of like two best friends and then like 23, 24 years old. I think we definitely saw that during the Fantasy Food Show where it's like such an inspiring story. They want to believe in like our brand. They trust our brand. They're like, if they could do this, then anything is possible, you know? So that's like the upside, like the positive end of it that I like to look at it with. But anytime like those types of scenarios happen, it just, we can't control it, right? Like we do what we do. We provide the best service, the best, like the best information we can about our product and we move forward from there, you know? I just find it so fascinating when companies do that because I'm just like your inability to move forward is holding you back and it's to your loss. Like you should be giving more credit to people that are just starting because if they make it, they'll never forget you. Yeah, and that's how we are. We don't forget any of the distributors who brought us on first. Like also age has nothing to do with it. Like to some extent, like you guys are, you're growing up in a world that's different than their world. And there's a shared sense of we're on the same planet but you're fundamentally in different worlds. And so they should be like, oh man, these kids are from the future. They're tapped into something that they are unable to do. What's discord? We met people at the Fucho and some of them we had conversations with because we're a four person team and we need help moving forward. And I interviewed someone and he's telling me, you should run your business like this and do it like this. And I'm like, no, you can't do that. This business is run like this. These are the margins we wanna work with what we're comfortable with. And he's saying, no, that's wrong. And I'm like, I know everything about my business. You're telling me from the outside and preaching to me, is it because you're two times older than me? You know, like. When I started to come back, I think this is the one thing I learned. Everyone's gonna give you advice. Your mom, your arms, your family, your little brother, and then all these strangers. They'll be like, you know what you should do? And I'm like, oh, no, I don't. Why don't you tell me what I should do? Enlighten me. Yeah, so fucking annoying. I used to hate that shit. I used to be like, shut up. Like, you don't know what you're talking about. Unless you've done it, unless you're in the arena, like, you're a spectator. And it's really that simple. Like, you're in the arena and I know who you are, or I respect you, or you're just watching. Especially when you just started out. That's when all the opinions are there. All the opinions. Oh, this is wrong. You should do that. That's right. You should do that. Are you sure? Yeah. Are you resting? That's super annoying. Are you guys gonna go on Shark Tank? We applied last season. And then. I kinda see it. I kinda see the story. We applied again this season. We're just hoping that we get some sort of contact. Like, we get contacted somehow, but we're just praying, you know? It's a long process. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah. Have you guys thought about influencer market or your approach to that? If there's any partnerships out there that you see as being favorable to you? Like, what's working to you? Is it TikTok heavy? Is it Instagram? Like, what's the thing that's working? I think, just to mention one point. When we just started this, it was all B2C. Like, we just had our online shop, you know? So like, our main focus to B2B has been in the last five, six months. So in the beginning, we were really heavily on nice pictures on our Instagram, posting a lot on TikTok and kind of getting that to grow out. We did dabble a little bit into influencer marketing. And we kind of saw that, like, if a person has 3 million followers or 100,000, it's all based on engagement and like, what those people follow them for. So in the beginning, we were so happy. We got someone with 5 million. We got someone with 3 million. And we're like, oh my God, this is crazy. And then you just go check your Shopify. It's like, that didn't work. You know, so it's like, why did I just pay for someone when I'm getting a negative ROI? You know, so it's like, it's a trial and error process too. You need to learn that. So something that we've learned recently is that we're focusing on the niche influencers that like, people follow them directly for the things they do, the things they buy. So that's been working way better for us. We haven't directly worked, we're not like focusing directly on influencer marketing. We kind of spread it out with paid advertisements, influencer marketing, TikToks and like we kind of spread it out because we're not seeing one side be too fair with another. We want to like keep ourselves like in all of them. Instead of influencer marketing, what we're really going for is partnerships with different companies. So I mean, I don't know if I can say this, but right now we're talking to like Press Juicery and Chrissy Teigen. Like we want to work with people like that because we want to align ourselves with people who actually believe in the vision. Not someone who just wants to make a couple extra dollars like with the... Not like in affiliation or affiliate marketing. Yeah, yeah. So we want to do like, not overextend ourselves and go for the big names, it's actually people and companies that we believe we can grow with like urban outfitters. Like we thought they were the perfect people and they understood our vision and reached out to us and they started off with like 10 units and they went from 10 units and we're like 10 units. Like some of our customers ordered like triple this. Like who's buying 10 units? Let alone like urban outfitters. So they went from 10 units and now they're ordering pallets like only like three months later. Of course. I mean, you want to align with the people who, like you said, get your vision. I mean, you mentioned Shopify earlier and I saw that the CEO of Shopify actually shouted you guys out on Twitter and really like he was enthralled with your story. You know, like during the pandemic, two childhood friends came together and built this candy company. I mean, that's the kind of people that you want on your bus, you know, helping to move you forward. Yeah, Harley is a great guy and we spoke to him and he really understands. I think when you're in the entrepreneurship and business community and you're working with the new age of founders, you understand how different they are and going back to your point, Diego, there, I think there's like a cultural shift in how you do business, how you could conduct yourself with other people and it's not as cutthroat or it doesn't need to be as cutthroat. Things can just be based off respect. Do you want to work together? Okay, how can we make this possible? I don't have to burn bridges or I don't have to take advantage of you. Things can be done where it's mutually beneficial and a lot of people, we get a lot of referrals because they're like, oh, these guys are amazing. Like they actually want to help us out because they understand that I have to be successful for them to continue growing too and it's just a lot of self inflection and really understanding like, what can we do to make other people's lives easier and actually be a joy to work with because we never want to be the people that we contact and they're really standoffish and make business like extremely hard and even when you do work with them, it's not enjoyable because at the end of the day, that's why we started this business. It wasn't for money, it wasn't for fame or anything. It was, we want to work with new people, make a change in this market and really just have fun while we do it. It wasn't to pick up girls? No. Do you want to have a cool story at the bar? They're like, hey, what do you do? And you're like, aw, let me tell you. Our girlfriends are probably listening to this podcast right now. I got a candy company. It's a good story. It's a good pickup line. No, it's not true. I think collaboration wins in today's world and if you're not collaborating, you're going to lose pretty quickly. It's pretty obvious and some of it's cultural. Latinas, there's some cultural, it's changing, but some of it's cultural and that holds people back. Let me throw my investor hat on. If I'm an investor, here are some questions I'm asking you, is this your line or are you thinking of creating different products, moving into different categories or are we just only doing candy? And if so, how many flavors are the bangers? Like the greatest hits album, is it six? Is it eight? Is it 10? I think we will be staying with our six product line for this specific gummies. And just for now, we're trying to get this product nationwide and possibly worldwide, because we're getting a lot of interests from a lot of different parts of the world and a lot of big box retailers and distributors from just United States alone. We're having like a lot of different meetings, trying to plan out all these price things. We want to grow this product as much as we can before we invest into a different product line. But I think the future for Chili Choose is very bright. Like we believe in this product so much that no matter what product line we drop after this, we know the community that we're building is gonna make it work because they believe in us, they believe in the brand, they believe in our name and they know that we're a trustworthy company. So let's say our next idea is we want to make lollipops. I think with this coding, with this idea, with this branding, lollipops would probably kill it. And if that's two years down the line, three years down the line, we don't know. But our main focus right now is being able to fund our POs. Cause like we're getting a lot of traction and a lot of different interests from different people. And that's why we're actively looking for investors. How much are you raising? We're trying to raise around 500,000 as of right now. And that's solely for funding POs. We're still at like a, it's not series A's. Just like a pre-fund and kind of Pre-seed. Yeah, pre-seed and kind of just raise money to be able to grow the business from where we are right now. Just because we do have nationwide distribution currently but we want to grow into as much places. Are movies like movie theaters, like AMC, IMAX? Are those worth it? We think they are because we see people, like they'll make TikToks or videos and they'll send it to us and they'll be like sneaking my bag of chili chews into the movie theater and then it'll be like a two hour movie. You should tag IMAX, AMC, AMC. Well, how do you guys view the whole candy market from the top down? Because we're obviously seeing a nationwide trend towards healthier for you options and all that good stuff. So we understand that there's also a place for the indulgent aspects of food but what does the candy market as a whole look like in terms of up or down? So right now, I mean, the candy market's been growing just based on market trends, like it's growing by billions of dollars every year. The one thing that I have to say is historically, like it's always been the same players in the candy space. Like whether you were in Target 20 years ago or whether you're in there. They're gonna buy you, they're gonna buy you. Yeah, whether you're in there now, it's the same Sour Patch, it's the same M&Ms, it's the same gummies, this and that. You see a few new players on the block but they're not revolutionizing anything. That's our whole focus with this. How can we revolutionize candy? We wanna make it fun, we wanna make it exciting when you walk down that aisle again. Oh, I've never tried spicy candy. Been the same thing for years. The candy aisle is just boring now at this point. So if you see something exciting like this, I'm getting three different flavors, sweet, sour, and spicy, like it's gonna- That's his pickup line. Yeah, that's the bomb. Sweet, sour, and spicy. Yeah, like sour. Exactly, at the bar. Watch out, girlfriend. When you guys think about yield, what is the thing that gets you guys the highest yield? Is it the person buying online? Is it some sort of collaboration with a bigger brand? What's the thing that, like, when you prioritize how you spend your time, this is the thing that always works? Well, at the start of our business, it was just direct to a consumer. Selling our product online, of course, gives us our highest yield, but currently, our main focus has just been with these big box retailers and distributors because we know that's the future for our business. We wanna be as much as we can be to be business as much as we can just because we want this product. You can run ads for years. I know you can reach millions and millions of people, but if people constantly see this stuff in their local liquor store or their local convenience store, 7-Eleven, they're gonna be like, wow, this brand is growing, right? So, currently, that's gonna be producing the most, I guess, in the future, the highest yield for us. But yeah, at the start of our business, it was just our B2C business. The one thing about our candy, and a lot of people say this, is there's a weird, addicting nature to that. Let's try one. Let's try one. Let's try one. Strawberry. Yeah, go for that. That was quick. You slow down. Anyone that asked me that question, I know where to point. This is like, you too, strawberry? Yeah, strawberry is fire. I also love peach. But the thing about this is like, I'll go from flavor to flavor. So starting off, I didn't love the watermelon. Now it's one of my favorites. That's where I would have started. Yeah. I'm a watermelon sour patch. You guys can be honest too, by the way, if it's not. Oh, don't worry. Is it your first time trying something like this? Yeah. You need to give it a couple of attempts sometimes. I like it already. I'm not sure if I did this. Did it actually even like this? I'm not going to lie. I was very hesitant because I don't really like candy. But it actually, well done. Well, thank you so much. It's not super spicy, so for all the listeners. It's not super spicy. Yeah, it's like mild flavoring. Two or three out of 10, because we don't want to alienate someone. That's pretty delicious, actually. That's way better than I thought it was going to be. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Which, I don't know what that says. I've never had a spicy thing, so in my head, obviously. I'm not a big fan of candy in general. That was like all sorts of nostalgia waves hitting me. And then also like that saltiness and that spiciness, yeah. It tastes like the San Fernando Valley. Yeah. I don't know how you guys did that, but the people listening, it's like the original, like when you first put it in your mouth, you get the spice. But it's not overwhelming in any capacity. Right. And then it becomes like delicious candy after. I was expecting like on level of spiciness, I was expecting like an eight or a nine. And that was not by me. Was that hard? Was that like the hardest part to get that right? To get like the spice not to overwhelm? Definitely. Just because like when we were trying this out in like middle school and like a little bit of high school, we were dumping anything we could into this thing just to make it spicy. But at the end, when we were about to start this company, we knew we had to make a good formulation for it to be appeasing to everyone, right? We want everyone to be able to love this candy and try it out. And even though it sounds weird or it doesn't sound that good to eat, we wanted to make it a good product, you know? You don't want their mouth on fire. Exactly. Yeah, like how we like it. Yeah, that's why we say we take the taste buds on a roller coaster. You get that little bit of kick and then it eases out to something a little bit sweeter. For some of the gummies, you'll get a little bit of a sour taste. What we do is I make popcorn at home and then I'll put candy on top. Oh, hell yeah. That's a good idea. I'll put Old Bay. You get all of it at the suite. That's what we're going to do. Oh, we see it. There's a potential collab. Old Bay. The Maryland, put some of that. Yeah, that's a good idea. Yeah. You get the Maryland crowd, you get Nick. Yeah. Done. And anything with Old Bay, you'll get the entire Maryland crowd. We'll flock to it. That's crazy. Like moths still flying. Anything you guys want to tease or mention or anything we forgot to ask you? Honestly. Can I get a hoodie? How do I get a hoodie? We can get a hoodie. Yeah, we got you guys. Yeah, I got a hoodie. I think the main thing about our company is that we're right at that cusp. Like we're going to be nationwide with a lot of big box retailers and distributors. So you're going to catch us in a lot of local stores, convenience stores very soon. I feel like we're right at that cusp for our business. And we're right about to blow up, I would say. Besides that, where we're currently at, every day, we're just trying to make the correct strides to grow and keep growing. And we want this product just to be in the hands of millions and millions of people, just because we think everyone would love this product. Just like YouTube. We probably thought, oh, that sounds kind of odd, right? Like that combination of sweet sour and spicy. But once you try it, it's like, wow, that's very interesting and very addicting. I think I know the story. I think you guys get on Shark Tank. I think you guys talk about how you left your job or you dropped out of USC. And then you go ahead and raise probably like $5 million. That makes you not a household name, but at least big time distribution. You're in every state. You become household names in California, Texas. And you guys become like the chili-chewed kings of California. How fun is that? Well, now I'm sorry, you guys. I appreciate the future. No, I love it. I appreciate you guys coming on the podcast. Thank you so much. Pleasure having you on. Yeah, thank you so much for having us. I also want to mention, for anyone listening, we appreciate you guys and what both of you do and your whole team. It really is inspiring listening to other founders. Because starting off, you're like, how am I ever going to get to that point? And it's like listening to other people's stories and just hearing like, I made a mistake here. I personally make mistakes every single day. And every single founder, every listener is going to make mistakes. But one day, you're going to reach that point. You're going to have to ask for help. If you can't do it by yourself, go get a partner. Like, it's not the best thing in the world. It's not what you want because of equity or whatever the sake is. But it's better to have a little less of something huge than nothing at all for yourself, you know? Creating a good team. That's like the most important part. Yeah, definitely. If you can't do something, can you outsource it? Or can you bring someone alongside you to be able to achieve that goal or achieve that thing you're trying to create or bring out to the market? That's definitely cute. Well spoken. Thanks, guys. Thank you. That was our conversation with Sean and Vikin of Chilly Choose. While I still have your attention, if you're not already subscribed, you should seriously consider doing so. If you are subscribed, then you should seriously consider leaving us a review. And if you've already done both, well, then you're just the greatest. We are at Startup Storefront on every social media platform except for Twitter, where you can find us at STS Podcast LA. The team consists of Diego Torres Palma, Natalia Capolini, Lexie Jameson, Owen Capolini, and me, Nick Conrad. Our music is by DoubleTouch. Thank you for listening, and we'll see you next time.