 All right. Welcome to the podcast on today's show with Jake from Phil and Manila. Thanks for joining. I appreciate you coming on. We can talk about your shark tech experience or anything else, but before we do, for people who don't know, what does your company do? Yeah. Thanks for having me, Dave, a huge fan. So it's an, it's honored to be here. So Phil Manila is a food company with products positioned around Filipino culture and cuisine. I started the company back in 2020 during the height of pandemic. And it was kind of inspired by an article I read that in some areas of the US, 20% of the healthcare workforce fighting on the front lines of code were Filipino. So it kind of like inspired me as a Filipino American immigrant to learn more about our people. And it turns out, you know, we are a thing at the time, the second largest Asian American group, the largest in 11 states, including California. Sure. Yeah. Yet there was almost zero representation in the US. And that was the impotence behind starting Phil and Manila to add representation. The thing that always blows me away about, I guess, the Filipino culture is like Joe Coy is a incredible comedian, right? Yes. But there's a whole subset of America that has no idea he exists, but he'll sell out arenas. Like he's huge, right? Yeah. And so that's always the metric for me. It's like, how can we live in like parallel worlds to some extent? And so when you first start to think about getting into the food game, what products did you want to bring? You could, you know, there's so many things, why this product? What was the first products you came to market with? Yeah, for sure. And just to add on what you said, it's wild because, you know, we're such a huge swath of the population. Huge. So when I talk to folks, you know, who are not Filipino, I mean, they always have at least one person who's a family member or friend or co-worker who is Filipino. And that's how they come to the cuisine. But when we started the company, we decided on, OK, we want to add Filipino food representation. What's the product to do so? Because there's so many things you can do in Filipino cuisine. And then I just thought about the parties you used to have in their Filipino family every weekend. You would typically find the same dishes at every party. And they're like more like stewed dishes. So they're like, let's bring kind of like cooking sauces based on those as a first product. But slowly after that, we discovered, you know, there are many other ways we can introduce Filipino flavors. So we did condiments and then eventually spreads like our ube into the market. And when did you launch the company officially? It was April of 2020. OK. So COVID hits. It was COVID, yeah. Did it work out for you? COVID was kind of the reason we started. So we had another company before that, which was an almond milk company, and that did not do well during COVID. Yeah, what happened with that company? What were you doing with the almond milk game? Just curious. Yeah. So, you know, that was a fresh almond milk company. I started at a farmer's market. We grew it to Whole Foods in Walmart. Craft was an investor. But since so much of revenue was tied to store traffic, once that went away during the pandemic, we shut that down. Was it shelf stable or was it all natural? It was refrigerated. Yeah. So, you know, we'll shut that down. But, you know, if that didn't happen, the starting film that would have happened as well. I'm an investor at an almond milk company. It's called Good Milk. And they went nationwide with Blue Bottle. And so, what's interesting is Nestle acquired Blue Bottle. And so Nestle's trying to basically powderize everything. And so the idea is like... The quality goes away. Well, that's the game. It's like, can you thread that needle? And then during, I guess, the pandemic, she was trying to figure that out. And it turned out she did. And it kept the healthy option, whatever it may be. And so now she's got a powdered version, she being Brooke from The Founder of Good Milk. And it's working. And so I think, like, sort of tangentially here. But the future of coffee shops is basically you walk in and it's just water, coffee beans, espresso machine. And that's it. And then everything else is powder format. And so now you need significantly less space. So all the storage you needed for milks is now gone. And so now your footprint for a coffee shop is significantly less. And I think Nestle, specifically, via Blue Bottle is trying to do that. And obviously, if you can powderize it and it works, now you have a product. Really interesting. It's like a high-end cakeup. Kinda, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like a scoop, a scoop, a scoop. Yeah, very interesting. Okay, cool. But what did you learn during that process? Like, what was your big takeaway walking away from the almond milk company? Well, I came from CPG before that as a corporate career. My big takeaway from that is that, no matter how much you learn from corporate, being an entrepreneur is kind of like a punch in the face. I mean, you learn something new every day, right? So it's very humbling. You learn a lot every day. But it kind of brought me, so when I started to fill in Manila, it brought me back to kind of my roots, right? Starting off very gritty, very scrappily, and just trying to build like an MVP out of nothing. Because I started a company with my stimulus check. Just I bought a couple of things off Amazon to build the first prototype. I love this story, by the way. You told me this yesterday, and I was like, we're gonna save that for the podcast. Okay, yeah. Yeah, how big was your stimulus check? 1200, the same as everyone else, yeah. So you started a company with that? Yeah, well, you know, it's kind of like inside joke. I used to say it was like the immigrant version of pre-revenue institutional funding, do you know what I mean, the government. Like I knew some of the buyers from my almond milk days from grocery, so I just bought some materials on Amazon. I did the labels myself. I used to be an art student a long time ago, and I sold it into our first store, which was Whole Foods in New York City. Okay, and then how did it go? What was the immediate reaction? Did you have to change or anything? Oh, it was well, so I remember selling the product in that summer of 2020, and then I knew the buyers before. I'm like, and I emailed them. I was like, hey, I used to have this almond milk thing. You know, now I have these Filipino sauces, and here's the story why I did it. And then I get a reply shortly after, like Jake, we've been waiting for years to someone to do Filipino. We'll take all the skews. Wow. It was that crazy. It was like a reaffirmation. How many skews did you have? We had three, three cooking sauces at the time. And so it was kind of like a reaffirmation that this could be a thing, right? This could be something that buyers and the retailers or even the audience or consumers are waiting for. Yeah, and then what happened when COVID hit? Did you have to pivot to e-commerce or? No, I mean, we started off as retail first, believe it or not. So we launched the first product into retail in November 2020. I mean, the economy and the stores are still reeling from COVID, so I couldn't even do in-store demos. So they wanted me to sit there at the shelf with my mask on and tell people about the cooking sauce. So we had to be creative. Finally, I mean, we did social media. I know we did some grassroots stuff to do it. But yeah, in a way, it kind of worked in our favor as well because people are cooking more at home. So they're more interested in global flavors. And then we happened to be the only Filipino game in most grocery stores at that time. And now at this point, are you just funding it yourself still? So from your stimulus track and then sales coming in? Yeah, at that point, I mean, that first year it was just like a few stores. So it wasn't that much funding you needed just to get it off. I mean, I remember making the first batch of sauces in a fire kitchen, like a firehouse kitchen. It was a commercial kitchen. Yeah, yeah. Just pulling in a few guys just helped me make like, you know, 600 jars of sauce in boiling pots, you know what I mean? But shortly after, it's like, you know, we needed more funding to grow. And then luckily I was accepted into a tech accelerator, believe it or not. Which one? It's called Sputnik ATX or base in Austin. So we only done two food investments, mine included. But that was really what kind of helped us do the snowball effect of fundraising. Cause they believed in, you know, they knew nothing about food, but they believed in my vision and believed in me. Yeah. Tell me about the name before we get into the Shark Tank story. Tell me about the name. Oh yeah. What does filo manila mean? So filo manila is kind of like a combination of two words. So filam is the short form of Filipino-American. I'm a Filipino. So I was born in the Philippines raising New Jersey. And manila is obviously like the geographic heart of the Philippines. So the thing was to create a name that kind of speaks to an obvious note what we do. Like manila, Philippines, and you know, there's a cute play on words. I like it. What made you decide to apply to Shark Tank? Or was that always in your head? What was the goal there? Oh, I've been a huge fan of Shark Tank like since forever. Even when I was working in corporate, I used to watch like back in season three. And I just, something about the show, like just watching these entrepreneurs pour their heart out on the stage. And even listening to the sharks with their questions, they're so different than the questions you hear back in corporate. And so it definitely wasn't the reason why I made the jump from corporate to entrepreneurship. But by all means, it inspired me and gave me that kind of the excitement to do so. But it's always been a dream to apply. This is my third time applying. And so, you know, once I got it to the third round, we're, I mean, this third time where I had enough traction, it was like super exciting, obviously. Yeah. And then did you know Daniel was gonna be in the room prior? They give you about, geez, less than a week notice. Okay. So, I mean, they always give you caveat every time you make it to the next stage. It's like, hey, Jake, we're gonna, you know, fly you out to LA. But just like, you know, we might not fly you out. So that's all these, these warnings. It's a healthy relationship. These are your guests. You know, this is your panel for the show. And, you know, it's Daniel Lubecki. It's like, oh, my God. He's from the food world. That's the guy. And then before you got, you went on, did you ramp up inventory? What did you do? Anything on the business side that you were trying to just adjust and get ready for a potential, obviously big day sale? No, because we filmed back in June of last year, June of 2023. So I know the show, obviously I did the research. What's your old, you know, your previous episodes and other episodes as well. So I know that there's a kind of a long lead time to build from when you air to when maybe you eventually, or when you film to when you eventually air. So, I mean, I'll just get this, get that step over with. And then if it happens, I'll prepare for that. Okay. So you get a spot on the show. And then prior to this, are you like, okay, here's who I want to get. Here's the investor I want. Is there someone you're targeting or are you sort of going, I just want to get a deal done here? Oh my gosh. So I mean, just give you like a mindset. So that same weekend before I was supposed to fly out to California, I lost like this huge pitch competition. So I was like down in the weeds. I was super depressed. When you say you lost like you were in the final and you lost? I was at top three and then like, it was a big prize. It was like $250,000 investment. And the winner was determined by vote. And I've never won a popular content, like popularity contest in my life. And so I was like, I was super depressed. And then I flew out to California, you know, that following Monday morning. And then, you know, you're kind of, you're always in the weeds and you're thinking about this stuff as an entrepreneur. And I'm sitting in a hotel room in California. I'm like, holy poop. You know, like I'm about to go on Shark Tank. Yeah. And so it just puts you in a different frame of mind and you don't realize things are happening. But to answer your question, yeah, obviously, like I wanted to target Daniel because he comes from the food world, probably arguably one of the most successful food entrepreneurs in our industry. But yeah, of course, like a deal is a deal and all of them are pretty amazing at what they do. Why do you think you lost the pitch competition? Just curious. So the winner was determined by vote. And so, you know, we had to play, you know, play by the rules. So I'm not going to call like a Philippine call center. So that would have been a good idea. Now that I know what a friend in Manila say, hey, yeah. But maybe I guess our network wasn't as strong as some of the other entrepreneurs there. So lesson learned, but it was a great experience. Yeah. Right answer. All right. So you get on the show and you start your pitch and you're hoping for Daniel, obviously, for people don't know, former founder of kind. And now he runs a fund called Kamino Partners. We were there at his epic event last night. I know, it was a crazy bumping into you. That was the place to be. Like all the high rollers, they're like, oh my God, Diego's here. It really was the best. Everyone that was in there was like, this is the best party all week long. It's a good party. Yeah, and we had a lot of pass guests there, which was awesome. Okay, so you're on the show, you're doing your pitch. I think you start at, you wanted 250,000 for 5% of your company. That's what you came in with. They shot that down pretty quickly. But they all love the product. Give me what you thought. Obviously, you know the product. It's another thing when people are on national television and it's sort of like your baby is being tasted, not live, but in real format that might be shown to the world. And if they don't like it, maybe not a good day. And so give me a window into like what you felt after they tried the product. Oh, I mean, so, you know, being a food entrepreneur, I mean, I watched the show. So the reaction is so critical. So there's a lot of emotions going on when you're on that stage, right? I believe I'd be sweating, I think. And so when they're trying to food like, oh my God, please like it, please like it, because I was so like in the details of how it's prepared and how it's presented to them. And so once they do like it, it's almost like one barrier is lifted. Like, oh, thank God they like it. Now we have to go to the next barrier about the whole numbers thing and everything else. Yeah. But just like, you know, Diego, so when I was there, that was the first day of filming and I was pitch number three. And they kind of gave us a warning like, hey, it's the first day of filming for the season. Like the sharks are kind of feisty and like all this economic stuff going on. So be prepared. And so even when I pitched, I gave my evaluation. And they were like, oh no. I was like, what? It kind of threw me off. Yeah, immediately they were like, this is crazy. I was like, okay. So do I just keep on going or what? I actually love that when they do that though. Like my part of it is like as an investor, I love it because it makes the entrepreneur, I don't know, I just love the positioning of it when you say like, that's fucking bullshit. Like come on, what are you doing here? It's a great, I mean it forces you also to prove it, right? Because if you have the numbers, it's really just a numbers thing. And so the numbers can dictate that that might be the correct percentage or not. Well for sure. And you have to respect who they are as well. I mean, they're all successful entrepreneurs in their own right. So you're not talking to VCs. You're talking to folks who built these huge businesses. So the way they look at investments and valuations is very different than what, maybe the market looks at investments and valuation as well, you know. Totally. To help people who haven't seen your clip, sort of your gimmick, the thing that you did, the magical moment, yeah. So my shtick is that, so I'm a fan of the show. So I know all the nuances. I know all the sharks. And one of the things that the sharks are known for, especially Lori Grineer, is that every season she has what she calls a golden ticket. And basically, she loves the product, she loves the entrepreneur so much, she gives the value, an offer at face value, whatever the entrepreneur asks for. It's a golden ticket, a little golden ticket. So I had the idea. I told the producers like, hey, what if I had a golden ticket idea? So if things aren't going well for me, I'll pull it out of my back pocket. It's a golden ticket. It's a paper that says royalty on it. And then I'll say sharks every season. I like to give my favorite shark a golden ticket. And the idea was to incite a royalty offer, right? To take away the risk and then hopefully get some excitement and maybe some new offers from the shark. And so that's what I did kind of like towards the end when the sharks start to drop out. Yeah. And so they're dropping up with Daniel's in and then you bring out the golden ticket and it says royalty and Mr. Wonderful goes, this is it. I'm back in and now he's trying to give you a deal. Yeah. He goes, royalty you say. And then like, like I said, you know, is it truly a shark tank experience unless you get a royalty deal from Mr. Wonderful? So it's kind of funny and exciting that he came in, but you know, when I'm on the stage, I was nervous as hell. You know, I was like, what the heck is going on? And then when you can see Daniel's reaction to that, he's like, what? And I was like, oh, shit. I'm like, I'm about to lose Daniel Lubecki. Like I got to focus all my attention towards him. So even after Mr. Wonderful was nice enough to give me an offer, like I didn't even look at Kevin. That's right. All my attention was trying to close the deal with Daniel at the time. And you closed it at $250,000 for 20%, right? Is that right? Well, it does show us for 20%, but drops to 15 if certain milestones are hit. So I mean, in a way it was a, it was a sharky offer, but you come to expect it and also given who he is, and you know, there are some pros and cons to it. And here's what I love about this story. And so obviously successful. You're currently in due diligence. And then yesterday we meet at Expo West at Daniel's party. The Camino partners Happy Hour and all his portfolio companies are there. And you're like, his analyst is here. I got to go close the analyst. Well, I was there to get the check from Daniel, did he spot me a hundred bucks per hour? That's pretty amazing. And so give people a window into, in some way in real time where it's like it's happening. This was yesterday. And so what's the due diligence like? You're dealing with the analyst. Give people a window that are hopeful to be on the show, hopeful to get a deal closed, and then any insight you have on what the process is like. Usually, I'll hear with Mr. Wonderful specifically, I guess his team is super amazing. Same thing with Mark's teams actually. All the teams that they deal with are amazing. And then what I've heard is like Mark and Kevin are both huge promoters also of the products. Like they sort of, they'll talk to you directly. You're not always dealing with the team. You deal with the team a little bit on the finance side, the due diligence side, the analyst. But what has it been like for working with Daniel? Oh, incredible. I mean, Daniel is amazing. I mean, he's very wealthy. He doesn't need the money. So he does this a lot to give back to the entrepreneur community and to help entrepreneurs build great food brands. So even after the pitch, like the first step was meeting with members of his team and they congratulated me and just kind of highlighted what happens next. Very clear. So during the whole process, from then up until now, like very fast response times, they're very fair because they're from the industry. So they kind of know what to look for, what to expect and kind of like the communication, like, you know, terms. And so, and then what I will say too is that they're so fair too because like they're very open to renegotiation. So they wanna make sure that the deal is happy for both. They know it's what happens on a TV show can get crazy because a lot of emotions are flying. Things might be different under the lights versus what's happening in real life. So, you know, we're working with them towards obviously the goal of getting, of closing the deal. The terms are still a negotiation. Yeah, that's awesome. It's so funny. So the analyst, I don't know his name, but people were talking to him the entire night. I think every time they're like, he's the guy I gotta convince. It's really interesting. Well, congrats on that. That's a pretty amazing. And I love how the story was unfolding in real time. Tell people what's next for the brand. Where do you wanna take it? Where are you rolling out? Yeah, so I mean, like what I mentioned in the show, we did a whole product transition like last year. We used to be in glass. Now we're in things like pouches and squeezy bottles. And the whole purpose of that was to unlock e-commerce because we've been a retail first company when we first started. So Shark Tank obviously was a huge blessing. It kind of gave us a head start in the world of e-commerce. I think I mentioned to you that in the first 48 hours of airing, we did more online sales than we did in 2023 all together. That's crazy. Yeah, so we have this, we're lucky enough to get this huge collection of emails, consumer data, obviously the sales bump. And so moving forward in 2024, we're gonna see how much we can grow our digital sales channel. Okay, via e-commerce. That's gonna be your main play. e-commerce is gonna be big, yeah. And obviously we still have our retail channels as well. We're in Target, Whole Foods, Meyer, Stop and Shop, yeah. That's a smart play. Does that change your percentage when you're doing the DD with them, going with an e-commerce play versus a purely CPG retail play? Of course. I think e-commerce in itself definitely helps with the bottom line. It's more profitable, right? 100%. And also, that helps with, especially in this climate with raising money. I mean, if you prove you're not only growing from a top but also bottom line as well, that's always helpful, yeah. When it comes to raising capital, are you still raising capital? Yeah, so we are in the middle of a bridge around. Our most recent investor was Whole Foods. So they believe in the vision, they believe in the assortment. And so we're continuing to close that bridge around. We have a couple angels and we are building a We Funder campaign as well. That's amazing. All right, when does it go live? When does the We Funder go live? And what's the minimum so people can hopefully support you in some way? I think the minimum. We want to keep it, because we had so much grassroots excitement about it. It's a very cultural product. Do you know what I mean? Everyone, not only in the US, but Canada, but overseas, they want to see the growth of the culture and cuisine through our products. So the minimum will be as low as like 50 bucks. Just be part of the movement. We're looking to launch the We Funder at least kind of like a preview page in about three weeks or so. Okay, so April. Yeah. People can look out for it in April. Dream collab. Joe Koi, who is it? Who's the dream collab? Dream collab, you know, there are a lot of like insanely successful Filipino Americans. Joe Koi, you know, Bruno Mars, you know, Bretman Rock. Oh, Bruno Mars would be perfect. There will be a lot. So I don't know. It's like, but to be honest with you, it's like, you know, our cuisine is so amazing. We don't have to limit ourselves to just Filipino collaborations because actually eight of our 10 customers who buy our stuff are not Filipino. So I mean, like, if you look at dream collabs, like anyone who's involved in the world of food, like just be who be excited about Filipino flavors, like that would be a dream collab. For people listening that maybe haven't had the product, how do you tell them to try it? What's the food that they pair it with? Just give them a window. So it's like, if they're a little apprehensive at the store, they don't know what to do. What are the things that you pair it with? Yeah. I mean, well, you three product lines. So we have cooking sauces. We have our banana ketchup as a condiment. And then we have our ube. It's a purple yam, right? It's like one of the hottest things on TikTok right now, it's a spread. So for example, with our ube spread, it comes in a palette. You just use it the same way you use a peanut butter. So put it on toast. You could put it on ice cream. You don't eat it right straight from the pouch. You could put it on ice cream? Oh, it's delicious on ice cream. It's amazing. Our banana ketchup, it's just like regular ketchup but made with bananas. There's no tomatoes, but the macros are insane. It's like half the calories, carbs, and sugar of regular tomato ketchup. It was actually the number two selling ketchup on Amazon. Really? The only ketchup that else sold us was Heinz tomato ketchup. Do people eat it with fries? Oh yeah. I mean, like you can give it a fried chicken with fries. It's delicious, yeah. I haven't tried your products, so I'm excited to try them. I brought some, we got some stuff sitting in front of us, by the way. We got some ube and banana ketchup. That's amazing. What a weird statement. Yeah. What else can you tell us? What else can you tease up for this year? What's the biggest thing on your agenda for 2024? We have these great core flavors of ube, banana ketchup, and adobo. So we're looking for 2024 to build that up through e-commerce and our retail. Starting next year, you're gonna see a lot more innovation driving around those core flavors. So ube is the hottest thing right now, right? So what can we do aside from a spread? Maybe frozen novelties, could be some cookies and stuff. So we're doing some innovation testing right now to see what else is out there. But Filipino cuisine is growing. We're just excited to be part of that. I think for, the cool thing about being on Shark Tank is that we're exposing Filipino cuisine to thousands and not millions of people for the first time. Yeah, and we're doing it in an authentic way. I mean, I'm like super Filipino, so it's very authentic. Well, I appreciate you doing that. I mean, as an immigrant, I know what it's like to sort of expose your culture to the world and there's a lot of pride in that. And so thank you for doing that. Thank you for sharing your story. Where can people find you? Where can they support? Yeah, I mean, if you're online, obviously at filiminal.com, you can find us on Amazon. But we're also available in several retail stores across the US, select targets, Whole Foods, Stop & Shop, Smires, and check out our store locator on filiminal.com. And if you're interested in investing, we'll drop the WeFunder link. Yeah, please, yeah, please do. And join the party. Jake, thank you, brother. Thanks for coming on. No, thanks for having me, it was great. Thank you for tuning in. 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