#5: How a First-Time Café Owner Overcame the Struggles of Growth

Daniel (00:00.482) Welcome back. In this episode, we're joined with Kashish here in person. I was wanting to do a podcast over Zoom, but you're like, no, we just got to do it in person. So this is the first time I'm trying this out. Hopefully the format works well. I'm super excited to have you. I haven't seen you in almost two and a half years. What have you been up to? I know the last time I literally saw you was in class. We were literally in class and I have like a memory of you just raising your hand. was my last memory. It was, I don't even remember which class it was. I just remember you being in the class. Were you with in the, what's the ethics or? I don't know, I just remember that. Yeah. Yeah. Wait, what was it? I forgot the professor's name. Alan Ross. yes. What class do we have together? Daniel (00:42.251) The professor Ross. Yeah We don't put the at the part where I forgot his name He actually came by the store he did he did when I opened in the beginning He was a real supporter. He actually came by apparently lives in the area near my store Really? Yeah. I remember last time we spoke, he lived up in the Berkeley Hills, but maybe he has another pad in the city. I wouldn't doubt it, but thanks so much for coming by. Yeah. Last time we spoke, I was working on another idea, trying to help business owners. Now I'm back helping business owners, but I'm working with restaurants. I don't know if I ever told you this, but I've always wanted to open up a restaurant. been a dream of mine since I was very, very young. I just watched a lot of Gordon Ramsay, watched a lot of food shows growing up. Of course. Daniel (01:29.768) And I still think it's in my horizon, but I know how tough it is to run a restaurant. Especially run like what you're doing, running a boba shop. The margins are tight, labor is hard to get. I want to spend some time with you just understanding some of the lessons that you've learned along the way. Maybe first, before we do that, you should definitely tell our audience a little bit about yourself and what you're doing, how you got to where you are today running Aura. you Thank you for that segue because I think I have so much to say, but all right, let me me start with an introduction. So I'm Kashish. I graduated Cal Berkeley Haas. We both did in twenty twenty two. And when I was studying business there, there's very limited number of options you can pick. You can pick consulting, you can pick banking. And honestly, I didn't want to do any of those. And so at that point, I was in a situation where it's like, OK, I've gotten into the school my dreams. What do I do next? And so at that time there's this Berkeley Skydeck company called Loop Chat. It was a college social media app that brought thousands of students together. We literally grew to a quarter million users on the app. Yeah, we were on number 35 on the social media category at one point. And we were going for it. We were going for series A. We were going for a big shot. And I thought that was it. I thought that was my moment where I made it in life. usually when you think everything's there, that's when life humbles you. And you're like, okay, that's not your calling and your calling shouldn't be going after money and short-term gains. So the thing is, even though that whole situation happened, what I realized out of it was that I love building community and that's something I really care about. And as an entrepreneur, you're not only a creator, but you've been a consumer. Like we all are creators and consumers. And I always went to these Vobashocks in Berkeley because there's like so many of them in the area. And even I grew up in Cupertino too. Kashish (03:24.846) when the whole boba bubble happened, it first came from Taiwan to Cupertino. that's crazy. Yeah, so even before everyone was trying it for the first time at Berkeley, I had been drinking it. So anyways, from there, I came up with this idea of why not have this healthier alternative. even before that, was like, why not make a CBD cannabis kind of boba? Because I was like, everyone on campus, they get high or something, then they it's definitely a Berkeley thing. Yeah. to the market for sure. Exactly, but I couldn't really do that because you would have to open like a dispensary and you'd probably be a drug dealer if you're doing it like Casually so from there I chose a personal cost me at the time which was like my insecurity with my weight all of that and I chose to apply that to a very niche concept of sugar-free boba and that's really where it started off now why does that tie back into community because There's there's something very interesting about the fact that when you go to a cafe You're usually there because you're hanging out with friends. You're studying with You're going on a date, whatever it is. It's all about people and it's about bringing people together and no matter what the drink is whether it's like a boba cup or like coffee Whatever it is. It's just it's like an instrument to bring people together. It's an excuse. They're not coming specifically just for the product They're coming for an experience. So that's honestly the reason why I started it But at that time I didn't know that reason you use sometimes you just do something as you have an instinct in you and you're like Might as well or like life just happens coming in that way Exactly. So this is me in retrospect coming back and sharing how the dots connected and why I picked that. So that gave the birth to Aura and Aura is like your energy, your light and it's just what I'm trying to do for people out there because the area especially where I open in San Francisco people are going to work and they're on this routine. But they don't have the opportunity to come back to what they love and in that environment. They do that at home. They do that somewhere else. So I want to be that place where people Kashish (05:25.232) can escape from work for a bit. I think there has been a lot of talk recently about third spaces. Have you heard of what a third space is? So Your first space is your home. That's where you spend 40 % of your time. And then the second space is your job. Depending on, you were going to work in banking, You would have spent your entire life there. That's the second space. And the third space is those communities, those places where you interact with people that aren't your home or your place of work. And oftentimes, those places are activities that you do. So for instance, I love the gym, so my third space is the gym, and I meet a lot of people through the gym. Like most of my friends back when I was in college came from the gym. And I feel like we've kind of lost that element of the third space over the years, because people always are on the go. They're either going back to their meetings, going home, and there is no place to just kind of kick back and relax. Yep. So I... Everyone needs that. Process. needs like a place where they can just process, kick back. So is that kind of the vibe that you were going for? I know that at the beginning you were, what I loved about your story is you tried everything. I remember when I was in school hearing about your business, the low calorie boba, that really stood out for me because I also am a bit of a, even to this day, a bit of a health nut. Daniel (06:48.718) try to watch what I eat. And then you were playing around with CBD and then you even did DTC and now I just saw your menu. You're sort of like changing the aura of your shop over the years. So like, how did you kind of come to the vibe that you have now? And then if you could define, you briefly mentioned what aura means. If you could define that, codify it more. Yeah, so when I first started and I always wanted to pick something that was health conscious because in many of the drinks you consume on a day to day basis, whether it's like you're going to Starbucks or you're getting an energy drink at the gym, it's filled with these horrible ingredients that are in there. And if every day while we're working and unknowingly we're consuming this stuff, it's gonna add up later on in life. So I already knew that was a problem out there and I knew that many of the ingredients like this high fructose corn syrup, sucralose, everything that we're putting in our bodies, It's really bad. You can go work out everything, but you're putting that in your body. So I wanted something that could change that and so I picked it with boba, which is something that I loved consuming. The thing is I started using these sugar-free alternatives. I was using Erythritol, there's Allulose Stevia, and I went to all these farmers markets to really test out my product and I went there for months and a lot of people who are nutritionists or people with health backgrounds were coming in and asking me questions and they really dissected my and ask me what are the ingredients in there. In this process, I realized that this whole sugar free, the zero sugar thing was a trend. It wasn't actually health. It was actually better to put sugar in your body than have these other things. And then I'm like, okay, at this point, I'm just selling something that is not even helping people with the intention to help people. So from there, I went back to the basics. My drink today is very different than where I started because I had to go back to the basics. And what that meant for me is that I'm taking a drink if I'm looking at a regular Mocha for instance and you have these pumps of chocolate syrup and the milk all that now Let's go even more basics I've gone to the point where I now make my own almond milk and that's we sell in the store We take like real organic almonds that come from a farm in LA We take water and we take jaggery, which is raw sugarcane that comes from India. Yeah, it's unprocessed It's like unrefined we put in a blender and then we like Kashish (09:14.512) take the milk out of it and then I can either boil that with like spices I can even blend that with a banana So it makes banana milk you have saffron cardamom milk now add espresso to that now add matcha to that now when you put on your body I can tell you exactly what ingredients are there not some random syrup I got from some wholesaler that I'm pumping into your drink That is real health health is taking things that are natural out there not creating chemicals and putting it in it's fine You can have sugar you can have all these things you can go eat a burger if you want to. But everything is about balance. That's what health is. So I feel like in this whole journey, it was like a relationship of me figuring out what my aura is. Aura is like your soul. It's what lights up your soul. And I feel like everyone needs to find that in their life, whatever it is, like their passion, like the people around them. And I feel like for me, I care about health. I care about community. And the final thing I discovered in this process is that I care about culture. And I know you didn't ask me a question, but I need to bring this up. When I first started, Aura a lot of people were asking me, there's these videos that went viral on TikTok of me serving my drinks and people were telling me, you're culturally appropriating this because you're not Taiwanese. Why are you taking our product and then converting it into something that it's not supposed to be, which is like the sugar free alternative that I was putting out there at that time. And when I came down to it, I realized that I actually wasn't really focusing on my own culture. really bringing out what I am most proud of because I'm actually running away from being Indian for most of my life. I was happy when people said that you don't look Indian, you're not, I don't know where you're from, like it was like I was embarrassed of my own culture which is so bad, that's so bad, I was embarrassed of myself. That means I was not owning up to who I actually was and I'm not, my intention was to never culturally appropriate but that's right that I never tapped into what I love and what I care about. So to this day when I have my almond milk and I'm bringing saffron and cardamom like these spices and herbs that come from my country and like the neighboring countries it's something I'm proud of and I want to just lean into that direction so I figured out my values summarizing everything is like community health and culture so that's Daniel (11:33.966) Yeah, I love that. Um, as you were telling me your story, uh, sort of thought about my story and we have a lot of similarities. I barely talk about my background because I'm not, don't know if you knew this, but I wasn't born in the U S yeah. was born in Israel and my parents are from Russia. so those two, we're not going to get political on this podcast, but those two countries have their own issues with the U S. So my entire life, I would always hide the fact that I was from that area. And as you, as a customer, first generation American, you're always trying to mold yourself to the people you're you're hanging out with your community and you sort of lose a lot of what makes you unique. And I love the fact that you've gone through this journey of in a way kind of redefining yourself, but also redefining your business. And now you're focused on something that you are you feel proud of your you feel like you're being authentic. Right. And I think first of all, you'll be able to stand out. I don't think I've ever seen a boba and a chai fusion like an Indian fusion. Is that something that exists on the market today or? Are you trying to do a fusion? you just? I think that- I am. I think you're tapping into my expansion plan because... Oh, Yeah, let's do it. I think right now when you go to... I'm sorry, I keep naming Starbucks. If there's any Starbucks fan on this... It's all good. That's a whole other story. Anyways, a lot of the chai lattes you get out there, they're not an authentic chai. There was an article that just Washington Post released yesterday. was a consumer report. It was talking about authentic masala chai. Daniel (13:02.126) I'm sorry. Kashish (13:18.778) And not only, I'm not trying to say this is a trend that I'm following, this is the beginning of the Indian influence coming here. It's about time that we have a representation. It's been happening on media and all that kind of stuff, but now is the time where I want to be part of that. want to be proud of my culture. I want other people growing up. I want my own children at one point to be like, I'm proud to be Indian. I don't want them to go through the same thing that I did where I was trying to fit in. as a first generation as well. So with that, I'm taking boba, I'm taking coffee, I'm taking tea, and I'm bringing the Indian spices to it. I'm going to bring the authentic masala chai. I'm going to bring the snacks. talking about an actual samosa, the actual pastries. Think of your cafe, but just an Indianized version of it. And that's what I want to bring. So that's actually my plan. I think in this whole process, I discovered that. I think when you said the word authenticity, that's actually the, I said a bunch of the values and that's another core value. So thank you for saying that. on the note of being authentic, I do want to say that when I first started this business, I started it with an ex partner who at that time definitely helped me. And I'm grateful that there was a team member who was there for me. in that relationship, I, that's where I thought I was building something with someone. think it's when you're building something with someone and you don't know who you are yet, you get susceptible to molding yourself. According to someone else and I not only did it go through that once but that relationship ended or I was now mine to take care of I answered another long-term relationship which actually just ended like a month ago Well, it's actually like some weeks ago to be real and even in that relationship. I was molding myself I was losing passion and what I was doing passion is like an emotion. It comes and goes you're gonna always feel passionate, but I was losing my why yeah, why am I doing this because Again, I was looking at someone else trying to build it with them because I was so desperate to have a team member because sometimes you feel alone as an entrepreneur like you want to be with someone else and in that process I was losing myself. So now I'm at a point where I figured out who myself is and I want to tap in more into that. I want to create more the money the sales will come with that. I don't want to chase after the sales because then again, I might as well go work at like banking JP Morgan. Kashish (15:48.388) and I might as well go where I was supposed to go. No, I know. And I know you won't because there's very few people that I can tell. Like I see them in person or online. In your case, I saw you on LoopChat. You can kind of tell if someone is destined to start their own business. It's like an uncanny thing. You can sort of sense it. They just... don't mold themselves to the rest of the pack. They find creative ways to put themselves out there. They do whatever it takes to make their business succeed. And I guess that's a good segue. I noticed that at the beginning, like I said, you were focused solely on the drink. Now I go online and I see that you're doing catering, you're doing classes, you're doing all of these different businesses, side businesses, I guess, to put everything together. and to help increase your sales, could you tell our audience a little bit more about, we talked about your core business, what about some of the other stuff that you're working on? How did you come up to those ideas? How did you land on doing some of those classes and all those extra means of revenue? How did you get to that? And is that something you would recommend other business owners to do, to find other ways of making money? Yeah in this business I open first of all like when you're doing this kind of retail business location is everything Yeah, and I didn't do enough due diligence and market research on the location prior to opening this first location And I picked a spot in downtown San Francisco and as you know There's so many articles that have talked about that place, but i'm open on spear street right next to the google building and over there it's been really difficult for me to gain that foot traffic kind of Kashish (17:31.256) Because it's lacking in that over there. So with that I had to pivot the business in order to survive So it was more of a survival mechanism that I developed this catering channel to really bring my product to the businesses that are near me and in that process what I realized is that Free drinks free products stuff like that in the workplace. It only goes so far. It only goes so far to make someone happy Yeah, that was a thing of the past. Yeah now it's about experience. It's about bringing some kind of vibe to the office because you rather work from home. Why should I come and drive to SF? Why should I wake up and take a meeting in the workplace and sit? It's because you want an experience. So my whole thing now is like, how do you bring that home like hospitality type of feeling and bring it to the workplace? So we started doing like boba bars, like barista bars on site where someone comes, we bring, we lug all the stuff from the store and then we're making drinks on the site, like making, like pouring it up over. And people are like, this feels like there's a boba shop at my work. I am looking forward to that today So it's really about bringing experiences there and then with we also brought Zumba dance. That was something very interesting we recently did an event and I mention is we went to EY right nearby and What I'm doing is I'm sitting there on the side I'm brewing up chai because I'm trying to test my new chai product before I put it out there. So I'm making authentic chai I'm boiling it. Uhm on an induction stove and my mom she actually is part Inspiration as well. She quit her engineering job to open a Bollywood dance company in the Bay Area And she's now running a Zumba Bollywood Zumba class with all the employees. It's really a meeting room like this I can show you a video later and people are just dancing in there and then I'm Yeah, I need to show you this I it might be on yes. Yes She was doing this on the side. Is it the photo on your website? No. So you were doing your thing and your mom was out there entertaining all of you. Kashish (19:27.598) Exactly and now they're coming after for a post workout refreshment because they want it's it was a whole experience People are walking by and they're like what the hell is going on in here? This is like this is something that you don't think about happening in a workplace Yeah, so I'm really trying to bring a different vibe a different aura to the workplace Yeah, and that's something I mentioned before that it's all about experience the coffee shop You feel a vibe when you come in you don't come back because there's the drink taste good. That's not enough You need an experience So now I'm trying to bring that experience of like when you're at home you come back from college You come back from work here if you come back to your house. I happen. I'm blessed I have like a loving mom and loving father, my mom will serve up some food she made and she'll you want more? That kind of hospitality is what I'm trying to bring where you feel like it's family. Yeah. that. going back to our earlier discussion about making a third space, I can envision you opening up a bigger cafe where you have beanbags, you have an environment where people can just chill. Yeah. And there's good music and tapestry. I know you're really creative, so I can definitely see a vision where people can go there and spend a long time there. And I also know that Starbucks has recently come under fire because they started kicking people out that weren't buying drinks. So if you weren't buying a drink, you're not allowed to sit at Starbucks and that defeats what used to be the aura of Starbucks. You can just come in and enjoy yourself. But the issue with, think, just think about it from a business standpoint, the difficulty of having a business where you can just let people spend time and enjoy themselves for extended periods of time is that you need a lot of land, right? You need a lot of space. And then you're battling with the issue of am I actually getting the foot traffic? Daniel (21:13.488) Like am I getting the turnover with the customers? Like am I actually able to make enough money to sustain that type of business? So there's actually a, have you heard of SF center in San Francisco? It's a, it's in Hayes Valley. It's a tea room. They do yoga. They do all sorts of health and wellness, like hippie shit. They do it all, but anyone can come in and just sit down. And then they also serve like amazing teas. I'm a huge tea fan. So you'll probably, you'll probably vibe there. You should go there and get some inspiration of how they do it. And if you want to create like this like third space, I think they do it really well. also monetize other aspects of the business to make sure that they're able to subsidize for that third spacing experience. that's something to take a look at. Interesting. I think that running a business is tough. work with restaurant owners and we know the margins. We know how tough it can be. And especially recently with the labor increases and prices going up for the cost of goods and with inflation, people are starting to kind of cut back and not going out and getting that cut of coffee. The macro environment right now is very tough. how has that been a factor in your business? I'm sure you probably have felt a lot of that pain. Yeah. Kashish (22:31.182) I think that's a great question because jumping back to the idea of like as a creator, you're also a consumer. We're both. We serve both purposes. So when you're in this creator position and you're making a decision actually from a business perspective, when you're looking at this on one side, you think about yourself as a consumer and you think about when you go to other places and you see these rising prices on the menu. many times you might find yourself frustrated. Like why is the serving size so smaller? Why am I paying this much? And when you become in this business you realize that there's so many costs that go into a cup of coffee they're not only the beans the the cost of goods that are going in there but the the labor to make it the the overarching the cost that come from the government which is probably one of the worst that especially in San Francisco and then there's other aspects too there's the delivery time there's there's they're like coming like they're not even my head right now but if you look at my PNL or I'll you Kashish (23:31.176) You probably see like different categories of different costs and so when you have that perspective on things it makes you look at it differently and you're like, okay You can only do so much you couldn't cut costs down. That's one option You can increase the price of your drinks or you can grow with volume because that's the only options you have right and so I was really deterring myself from Increasing the prices on things before but when it comes to a certain point I realized that many times you when you're upset and you're paying for something is because it didn't And you're like, why did I pay that much? But when something tastes good, you feel the love that went into it and it's handcrafted, everything like that. You are willing to put that down. And so now it's really about me putting some respect on the processes, the handcrafted processes that go into making our milk, the espresso, the kind of weightage we go, like the kind of detail we put into making each drink. I decided to increase my price for that reason. And I've still kept it in hard with other businesses that are in the area. Yeah. I don't think speaking being competitive, I don't think we should just compete on price. I think we should compete on the kind of experience we're putting out there because every brand has its own experience and there's something for everyone. Like that we don't need to go all after the same people. There's so many people out there. Everyone needs to find their own space. That's really what it is. And so that's kind of the mentality of adopted. And I'm in a phase right now where I'm actually testing Thank Kashish (25:00.816) it out as well. So we can have a conversation in 70 days or something or maybe before that actually like the halfway point. Yeah. Got me thinking. We've heard of like the value wars with some of these, I would say more so in my business, the QSRs, the fast food restaurants, they're all recently all competing on price, trying to have the best value menu item. Yeah. Trying to give, trying to their consumers the best value for their money and trying to improve operations in order to reduce costs. Right. That's one strategy. But I think the strategy of the 21st century consumer, especially in 2025, we're all about the vibe like take a look at this cup yeah like this cup right here they're paying an extra maybe what what do you think like 30 cents more yeah and this is something I will remember yeah Maybe like 30. Kashish (25:52.332) Is it? Yeah. Versus like a Starbucks cup or just a regular brown cup with no flavor to it. Personality. That's the word I was looking for. No personality. And I think that nowadays customers, consumers are looking for the personality. want to feel good about the products and the brands they support. They also pay a premium for the experience. Right? So if you go in there and the artwork is beautiful, the vibe is nice and there is something unique about it, whether it's the marketing or the story, or you just love to No. Daniel (26:23.34) support the founders, I would pay a premium over that. The word story I think like that's what it is. It's like it's when you think of a brand now people are moving away from it seeming corporate Yeah, you want that's true. You want to think of the brand as a person because it is a person But like when you scale that's a problem like you lose touch with that. That's right So and then at the same time, it's like how do you? Scale while keeping that personal touch like right now with my catering business something I really take pride in and it makes me Happy is that I have customers that I work with in these buildings and in these companies and like I can message them at any time and they can message me. Yeah. Like I feel like they're supporting me and I feel like they're family. The other day someone saw my car and they're like, like, you opening Berkeley? Like that was literally a catering customer. had yesterday. Someone sent me the article on masala chai. Yeah, I didn't find that myself. It was another customer. Yeah. And I met them at for a Deloitte event. I'm meeting these people and they're not just customers. They're people who are helping me and they're there for me. So it's like, How do I lose? I don't want to just automate this like by having some catering software that's now just they can place an order through it. Like right now they can hit me up directly. So how do I keep that personal touch? I guess right now I'm not at a point where I can't handle my demand, but I think that's just something to think about because you want to prepare yourself for a situation of like, what if my business 10x the next day? Can you handle that? Like, do you have the team, the supplies, everything? Yeah, that's amazing. I can go into so many different directions, but I'm a process junkie. love processes. Yeah. I love to set up systems that work. And when you're looking to scale and you want to keep that same personality, you want to keep that brand that you set up. think it's important to hire good people, right? That embody that energy, right? That embody that personality, that embody those values. And I think that a business is only as good as its people. So you can have the best Daniel (28:24.388) location, you can have the best product, you can have the best marketing, but if your people don't embody those principles, eventually the business is going to come crumbling down. I've seen this happen recently. I was looking at this brand. I don't want to name the brand. don't want to name them, but they recently got bought out by not a PE firm, but like an investor. That investor bought out this company, which was family run for 80 years. The father who created it, unfortunately passed away and the kids didn't want to take over. And I went on their reviews and I went on Reddit and everyone is talking about like what the heck happened to this business? And the reason why they're saying is that it just started to lose its touch because the founder passed away and they started doing like, that's the little things that happen first. It's like you remove that ramekin that you used to put the sauce in and then you stop hiring the right people and then it just kind of crumbles. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy in a way. when you're thinking about scaling, I think that's what's extremely important. You got to have good people. And to be honest with you, I do see a future where you're running a huge business and you're not going to be able to handle all those texts coming in. So you got to start thinking about that now because like you said, you never know when something's going to blow up. I think you bring up a great point about the processes. I think it's also important when you're running a business to know your own strengths and weaknesses. What are some of your strengths and weaknesses? Kashish (29:48.782) The weakness is the process side of things. I think that's where I feel that it's something that I don't take the time to do. And it's now at a point where it's like, do you want to do girl or do you not? You have to do it. But sometimes it's just like you don't have the skillset. you have to, there's more of a learning curve there. And this is where I would love to have a team where I have someone who can compliment on that side. So my strength on The side is I'm a marketing person. think marketing is something where I have to go out and make some fake statement or something. It's actually me being true to myself. That's how I market. I market by being myself and putting myself out there. that with that comes the sales side of things too. I think selling is just telling the truth. I think many people make selling not telling the truth, but just tell the truth. And it's about creating trust. And I feel that that's missing in a lot of marketing. Kashish (30:48.696) This is because I feel like I've been betrayed my trust has been betrayed in life in all kinds of Aspects so I don't want to put that for other people as well if I can't do something just say you can you can then you can then you will get a repeat customer it's better to get Loyalty then it is to get random there and create a reputation of like this person's fake then you're gone once your once the is broken It's hard. Yeah, it's hard to repair it reputation is everything. Exactly. So. It brings you back to when we first met, I was reaching out to you about helping you with your bookkeeping. Yeah. And I've always been this process guy. Like I love, and even with this company, I set up the processes and hire the people and just make sure everything runs smoothly. So you need to find yourself a good operator that can handle eventually, that can handle some of the day-to-day stuff that to be honest, I don't think you should be handling, right? Eventually, eventually. Right now you gotta suffer through that. Every single business owner needs to through the early days. Daniel (31:49.676) But you got to figure out what are those strengths, whether those weaknesses and you got to play to those strengths and just hire for some of the weaknesses, right? So you can focus on what truly brings value. And I think I do want to pick your brain a little bit about marketing because you have some of the best marketing I've ever seen. Even back in the day, it was a little crazy, I would say by my standards, but it drew attention. drew the eyes. And now I'm starting to see that you're deaf. kind of changing your approach a little bit being more authentic I think yeah and changing the channels tell us more tell us more about your marketing strategy and what can you offer to my audience about how to stand out I did tame down a little bit. Kashish (32:33.47) I think it goes back to, again, just being yourself. And I think the brand is a reflection of the person who runs it, right? So let's look at something like Liquid Death, which is the best example of marketing out there. Their product is just water. Sparkling water. Exactly and then like they saw the problem at that like when you go to these rock concerts like whenever you go to these places like everyone's holding a beer can what if you don't drink what do you do and so they again also the genius part they created something that Was actually solving a problem because now you can fit in by having a can that looks like beer. Okay, cool. Now it doesn't stop That's that's just cool. That's a that's a great feature. That's a great need. They've identified a problem and They found a way a solution to it. Okay, that's the first requisite to a business, right? Now here comes a marketing part you look at their marketing And it's insane. It makes you think it makes you question and it's something you remember That's right And I think that's where right now in a world where most people are content creators and there's this idea of fame that's online where you are going after the views and all of that how do you how do you actually get to people? and For me in an old-school kind of way I like the offline gorilla kind of marketing and that's what I did at loop chat like we hosted a squid games on campus which was like a squid games meets create challenge. I remember the glade was just filled with people. I remember the first day that for aura when I did a taste test and it was like free drinks and it was boba guys versus us. I think the best kind of marketing, especially with products like this where it's like a consumer product is just doing it in person, like doing it in front of people because everyone's online now. Yes, I understand that ads can reach a lot of people and that's great for certain kinds of businesses, but Kashish (34:20.441) People will always remember something that's in person. And it's better to get less people who are quality kind of people who will support you than go after the masses and have people loosely know about your idea. So I'm all about in-person marketing. That's why through those events, that's what I'm going to continue to do. I'm just going to be there in person. I think that old school ways of flyering, all that, they work. They actually work. And I think it just requires more effort now, but it works. And that's the same method I use for catering. I do that door to door method. I come in and have meetings. I walk into an office and I say, Hey, where's the person in charge? It takes more effort. I it does. It takes more effort, but it works. It really works. You just have to put in the work. And I think social media is just a branding tool, not the biggest sales and marketing tool. It's like, it's a, should have that. And it's people will remember and over time it will work, but it's not like a fast way to get results. Yeah. But going back to the message and the craziness aspect of it. did tone it down because of me focusing on the corporate customer and LinkedIn became my biggest platform. And at first my market was Gen Z. It was like me. was like you and me. Exactly. And it was fun. Like there was something fun about that. But then I had to tame it down for the audience I was around. But now I'm going back to myself because like that's not a core value of my company. But I Authenticity is but it me being crazy is not a core value But I can say that it's a part of me and I want to bring that out there I want to find a way where I can put that out there and I guess now when I'm talking it sounds like I'm in my people pleasing kind of mindset But I just need to put that out there actually who cares it's gonna resonate with some people and it's not gonna resonate with others But the people it's gonna resonate with those are my customers 100 % and I think that was a problem I had in the beginning where I was trying to please everyone I would get so upset when I got a bad review that was even looking at my five star reviews. What about the people who actually care? Daniel (36:23.63) It's a psychological thing. Those bad reviews, they hurt way more than 20 positive reviews in a go. I love that. Yeah, so the craziness will come back. It's coming back. It's me. I need to put it back out there. It was getting too tame down. And not to blame my relationships, but they were taming me down. And this is one of the reasons why I started this podcast, right? It is a marketing and a sales angle that I'm playing. But also, back when I was 10 years old, I used to do Minecraft videos and I would record myself talking in front of a camera, in front of a microphone. And I built up an audience. Like at one point I had 10,000 subscribers on YouTube. I think at that point I was like 15. Wow, you were before the whole... Before any of, I there were influencers, I was in a small little niche Minecraft community. But I got so comfortable behind a microphone and I loved inviting people on. One of my favorite series that I did is I would have guests come on and we would just vibe. We would just talk about life. And I was a 15 year old talking about what happened in high school. And I've always loved putting myself out there on LinkedIn. And I remember when I was in college, Daniel (37:36.752) that was kind of seen as cringe because in a way I maybe I was going a little bit overboard and I was posting a little too much and some of the things I was posting was inauthentic but now as I've gotten older and I've more comfortable in my skin I know that that is an angle that I need to play because if I take a look at some of my strengths this is one of them yeah putting myself out there talking to people like you and I are very much alike and that this is an angle that can actually bring us business do it. We just need to do it. who cares? Other people are saying. Exactly. I was always, and I was a ghost for the last year on LinkedIn because I left my previous startup and then I went to go work in corporate and I loved where I worked, but I just wasn't able to actually show that side of me. it became dormant. I saw it. Yeah. was like, I was posting I was I thought I had to delegate it I'm like why am I delegating the thing that I like doing yeah I was afraid to post I was afraid to be myself so I it's crazy whatever you're saying like I really relate to it like I like the timelines insane Well, we're getting close to time. want to say thank you for coming on. I hope that we can have more checkpoints. It shouldn't be every two years because as we start building our businesses, building our brands, I know that our worlds are going to connect. And we also have a very similar story in that we've started businesses, failed businesses, and we're coming out the other side with a lot more perspective and wisdom. I definitely respect everything you've done, even from when we first met, you were putting yourself out there and that is tough. Daniel (39:13.836) Very few people can do that on top of that starting a business a food business you know my audience here runs restaurants runs catering companies and They know how tough it is and for your age doing that in the toughest city in the world, San Francisco takes a lot of balls Thank you. I don't even know what to say. That just means a lot. And I like, I think we all meet people in our life. either it's like they're like, everyone's like on a similar journey and it's like a soul family, I guess. Where like we meet people, sometimes they're like life lessons to like grow stronger. And then sometimes people are just meant to be on a path with you. And I feel like we're meant to be on some sort of path together and we're going to grow. That's what happens. Like that's why we reconnected two years later. So like, let's just keep doing it. respect. Daniel (40:02.572) Guys, I will put all of her links in the bio. Check her out if you're a company that's looking for catering, looking for fun events to do with your team or just passing by San Francisco and downtown. Got to check her out. Thank you so much for joining me today. This was a lot of fun. Thank Thank you.