Advice Line with Pete Maldonado and Rashid Ali of Chomps

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You can sign up for free at GuyRoss.com or on Substack. We'll put all of this info in the podcast description. All right, let's get to it. This week I'm joined by Pete Maldonado and Rashid Ali, co-founders of the grass-fed meat-stick brand, Shomps, Pete Rashid, great to have you guys back on the show.

Thank you for having us. Yeah, thanks for having us.

You were first on show in 2023 and it's always to anyone listening.

If you haven't heard that story, we'll put a link to it in the episode description. It's an awesome story that eventually led to this amazing brand, Shomps. Pete, you actually came back onto the show for advice line, so it's not your first time here. Rashid, welcome to the advice line on thanks for coming on.

Yeah, thank you. Before we get to our collars, I want to ask you guys a couple questions. You know, we're in a protein world today. It just, it seems like people are putting protein in water and yogurt ice cream. You've seen protein everywhere.

You guys have been in the protein business for a long time. And every trend I'm reading, every sort of forecast is saying the protein market is just like going to expand and boom and grow. So tell me a little bit about, you guys are both leaders in this category, but also writing away, too.

“Guy, I think we're on the right side of a big trend, but like you said, we've been at this”

for a while. And we think like at some point with any trend, there will be consumer fatigue. Like sometimes in turn, we talk about like the proteinification of everything. You mentioned water and ice cream and popcorn. And so chocolate.

Exactly. Choms is winning on the current momentum behind protein, but we're going to win on the other side would folks get a little bit fatigued on it. But at the end of the day, I mean, there's a lot of room for additional protein and folks die.

It's especially convenient, natural sources and chances that that solve for our consumers. You know, listen, this is a cultural shift. There's not a fad. People are changing the way they're dieting and eating and they're educating themselves. And that's not going away, right?

And so we always knew, you know, protein was, people needed more protein than they're

diets when we started as 13 years ago, so why we're here. But we never anticipated, you know, GLP ones and, you know, doctors all over the place telling

“their, their patients, you need to eat more protein and it's more protein per calorie, right?”

And this is, you know, it's a way for us for sure. Yeah. I want to talk to you guys about last year because you faced a challenge last year. And I'll just kind of give some background, which is there, nobody found it, but there was a possibility that one batch was contaminated with, with a bit of metal.

And this is something that is not common, but it can happen in manufacturing process. There's metal equipment, there's all kinds of metal that, that food goes through and, you know, very rarely a tiny piece of metal can chip off from a grinder or something and end up in a product. You guys found out about it, nobody saw metal in their chops, but it was a possibility and

you had to recall just tons and tons of products, which I can imagine was a really, it was a low point for you guys last year. Can you talk a little bit about just how, you know, like just how you kind of handled that? It was one of the hardest times in the business, really just figuring out how to react. And I'll say it was an isolated incident exactly what you said.

We did an internal investigation and identified one of our seven facilities on one packaging line at an evening shift on a Friday where something seemed off. So to avoid any risk we expanded the scope quite significantly and did a pretty large scale recall. It was painful, like it felt like the world was ending, even though it was so isolated, I mean,

like at the end of the day, John says mine and Pete's baby, we started this from nothing and it's here because of our consumer. So you think about like the potential risk of jobs putting any of our consumer that risk, we were not going to do that.

“So we went through the process and in the end, we didn't find any metal, right?”

There was no adverse reactions, thankfully no one got hurt, we got through it and it was

Like I always say, what I tell the team, one recall is one too many, right?

It's just, it's not acceptable. We can be better. We have to have processes, we have to have controls in place, but no, I can say with complete confidence that we have handled it, we've got through it.

“And I think like the organization in Vistructures far stronger because we did say like we”

can get tighter here here and here and now we have new processes to make sure that it won't happen again. Yeah. I mean, the way, you know, a rising of Jenny's splendid ice cream, she had a recall early on in that brand and the way she handled it was so same way, you know, instantly, there

was nothing was confirmed, but it was like simply because of the possibility they'd recalled their ice cream, it cost them millions of dollars and consumers really appreciated that preemption and that, you know, sort of over correction and at the end of the day, you know, not only did it not hurt the business, but the business just grew exponentially. And I imagine, you know, you had a similar reaction from your customers, but I imagine

it cost you a lot of money. A painful amount of money. It did. Yeah. And it's still, it's still TBD as far as the ultimate exposure, just at the end of the day,

we, when we were going through the cost or expense never crossed our mind, right?

The goal was to remove any consumer risk, any product risk and make sure we make the right decision long-term decision. So like, yes, it was a material cost, we're still kind of weeding through the total impact. But no regret. Yeah, I sounds like you guys handled that really, really well.

All right. What do you guys say? Let's bring in our first color. Shall we do it? Yeah.

Let's go. All right. Let's go. Let's bring our first color welcome to the advice line. You are on with the co-founders of Trump's, tell us your name, where you're calling

from and just a little bit about your business, please. Hi, Guy, Pete, and Rashid. I really appreciate you having me here today. My name is Yaddi Thorees, I am the co-founder of Yadis Artisanol and Panata here in New Pulse, New York.

Awesome. Welcome to the show, Yadis. Yadis and Panata, assuming you make and Panata's, do you sell them in stores and grocery stores tell me about the business? Sure.

So, Yadis and Panata's really started.

I was a formal teacher for 23 years or so, but food has always been a passion.

Yeah. And culture in Panata's is just something that I grew up eating as a childhood favorite. And as it became something trendy and I realized that culturally it was catching on.

“I honestly couldn't find unauthentic in Panata anywhere.”

Everywhere we try in Panata's, they were either greasy, not freshly made. They didn't have enough feeling. Yeah. I felt like in Panata was really quickly becoming like a quick fast food. Yeah.

And so, I really wanted to elevate a street food into something that you feel good about eating. That's made with fresh ingredients where we're not compromising the quality and the flavor. And so, that's really where it all started. I love it.

So, you were a teacher and when did you start this business? Did you left your teaching career to start this business? I sure did, so I thought for 23 years and in 2021, decided that I will resign and I would start the business right from my kitchen. And so, for about a year, we focus on just selling to coworkers and friends and schools.

And then from there, we landed in a commercial kitchen. Did that for a little bit? We ended up starting farmer's market, pop-ups, events, we then bought a food truck in 2023. Wow. And from the food truck, we landed at Sunino Bolt, so, the opportunity came on.

At the university there. At the university there.

“So, you opened a brick and mortar space or a physical space on the campus there?”

So, I think that's, so, while it is a space that we have, we started our first location was, we August of 2024, we opened the far end of campus inside a small convenience store. So, previous to that, we were making the production from the commercial kitchen. But when the opportunity came in to go on campus, it wasn't a proof for us to be producing from the share space and so, the compromise was for us to produce right from their campus,

but at a hefty fee. Got it. Okay. So, you now, you have a, you saw most of our entrepreneurs on the Sunino Bolt's campus. Now, I do.

And tell me a little bit about your sales, how you guys, how did you do last year? So, the first year we did, we from day one ourselves were really good.

By the end of that semester, they had moved us into a bigger location, centrally located on campus because we were doing so well. And within a week there, we had double our sales. So, our sales are currently in have been now for a whole year on average of $3,000 daily. That does go up some days to 3500 on really good days, but average we're making three

grinds a day. So, three grand a day. I mean, that's, that's pretty great. I mean, maybe doing 700,000 or more a year in sales. Correct.

Wow, amazing. Okay. So, before we dive in for the, what is your question for us?

We're wondering at what point do we, do we think about a second location, brick and

models, and right now, technically, while I have this location, it's not really ours. Do I move into other colleges and really duplicate what we have into other schools? Do I go back to distribution? So, is that that sort of, like, road and what do we do? All right.

So, sales are strong at this location on the SUNY Newpult campus.

“You're wondering whether you should open a second location or focus on distribution or”

a combination about Pete, where she don't want to bring you guys in, thoughts or questions for Yaddy. Yeah, Yaddy. Nice to meet you. This is Pete.

Yeah, you're speaking my language here. I grew up eating a ton of epinatas. I'm Colombian and my grandmother, he's been making all the time. My mom makes them now. It's the only thing I asked for for my birthday, which is coming up at end of this month.

So I'm very excited to get my batch of epinatas. My batch of epinatas.

But, um, okay, so my first question is about, you know, labor and management at this,

this first location that you have, are you a, is this thing running itself? Like, while you're here talking to us, is there somebody there selling epinatas? So, I really is now, so when it started, it was really my husband and I, in my children. So, it was really family working around the clock 18, 20 hours a day. My husband will leave his job.

Go there. Now we have a team of nine people and I have a manager that's been trained now, family also. It's really trying to keep your family as much as we can, and so no, I don't have to be there now for, for Yades and Panadas to run.

That's great. Yeah, so it sounds like from like a product standpoint, you know exactly how to replicate this in terms of equipment and all of those things recipe. It's, you know, it's all pretty much, you know, you can just do this over and over again.

“I think, you know, for me, it would be like, you know, management and labor pool would be”

the biggest question marks, and that would be like, you know, real estate. I would say real estate. That's the other question. Is like, do you have a unique situation in the current environment where, as you start thinking about secondary locations or scaling, are you going to current additional cost?

So, like, are you currently profitable in the, in the existing, like, at the 700K, like, your, you are profitable? We are, I've worked with a consultant to help figure out the where our costs should be in terms of food costs, employee costs pay roll. I think the only concern in, well, one of the concerns is that with a college campus, while

we do really well those months that were open, it is closed during the summer. It is closed for a whole month for the winter. So, we have all these breaks and what I found last summer is that, well, we made great money and there were still profit, I now have a period of four months where I'm not making any money.

So, that's, that's where we are right now. Yeah. The seasonality aspect of working at with colleges that makes a lot of sense, but then you mentioned before the food truck idea, I think that's the solve. I mean, if you have a food truck and then you can have a campus that allows you to have

space somewhere on campus, you can hit that target market and then as soon as schools out, you go, move that truck somewhere else where it's going to be, you know, get some food traffic.

Yeah, I guess, you answer the first question that Pete had, which is, it sounds like

this location can run without you on site, right, this existing location. And so, is there a person on your team who could potentially run a second location if you opened it tomorrow? Yes. Great.

“And I think that the other questions, and it speaks to the idea of real estate, right?”

You are in new Paul's, New York, I guess you're between New York City and Albany, right? And New York City is a tie. I mean, that's challenging, but I think, you know, based on what we know from franchise businesses that I've been on the show, their expansion stretch usually begins with one location within 45 miles, so within an hour or so drive.

So you can handle that second location to kind of test market it. We've actually looked into Connecticut, where we're really beginning to do our research and investigate Connecticut. We like Connecticut because from no pulse to Connecticut, we're less than an hour away. New Havens, got students, right?

It's got plenty of colleges. And so I think it's really, really trying to figure out, do we just continue this path

And or do I just think about opening some sort of a kitchen, my own sort of commercial

“kitchen with maybe a little bit of a front store where I can maybe combine both?”

I like that latter idea, but if you pair it with, think about delivery. It seems like such a portable grade item, if you think of like door dash or Uber E, that option out of a kitchen. So true. So scalable.

Yes.

And then maybe you have a second arm where you have somebody that's focused on maybe

within 20 mile radius, books, tours, or coffee shops, like your morning dropping off the hyponatas during that, like there's other opportunities where you can kind of be creative about how to scale and get as many hyponatas in people's mouths as possible. Yeah. That's like a commissary model.

It's very similar to like a bagel industry up in New York area. It's the same exact thing. You see, let me make a ton of bagels and deliver them, you know, daily, whatever, they're all the bagels stores all over the place. You can do exactly that.

And whether you're serving your own food trucks or various locations that are like guy said, and it's got to be close enough to where it makes sense. Absolutely.

“And I think that that sort of solidify that idea, that distribution is where it is.”

The cost of renting the cost of the overhead of expenses, of training, of employee. While I enjoy it, and really is so gratifying to see the students come in and people enjoying a meal. It is a lot. Whereas when we started and we were doing distribution, you make hyponatas.

I really didn't have to work so hard at getting people to get them. But you know, hyponatas, it's not, it's not like it's an hyponata shop on every corner. Like there's a burger joint every corner, right? It's, but it's got the potential to be something really interesting, especially if you're finding success in a college town.

And so it does make sense to me that you're looking at a place like New Haven where you've got a lot of students. It's not that expensive. And you could generally, a lot of buzz around you're like, oh, hey, I heard yet, you know, Yadis Emponatas are coming to New Haven, you know, especially if you work with like a local

alternative weekly or the the Yale newspaper, whatever local websites or food writers are out there and you kind of build buzz, it could be a really interesting place to be. I think you're very right. And I see that in our future.

As always, you know, there is that feeling of, are we ready, are we not, but having this

conversation today with all three of you really does give me that confident in the trust

“and believe that it, if it's now or never, just, what can I have nothing to lose?”

I quit my job four years ago, and I'm here. So moving forward now and taking that next leap of faith and going to the next level, I got nothing else to lose. All right, Rashid, Final Thoughts, a Final Thoughts reality. I'm hungry.

Like, I don't know why we did the silly in the day. I'm so hungry. I want to put that in. I mean, I'm sure somehow, some way, you guys get some amazing, right now, once you try them, you'll know what I'm talking about.

I believe the Yardys Reese, founder of Yardys Empanara, thanks for calling, and good luck keep us posted. Thank you so much for having me today. Thank you. We're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, another caller, another question,

and another round of advice. I'm Guy Ross, take a round listening to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Ross, my guest today are Chomp's co-founders, P. Maldonado and Rashid Ali, Pete Rashid, you guys ready for the next call? Let's do it.

Let's do it. All right, let's bring our next caller, welcome to the advice line. Tell us your team we're calling from and a little bit about your business. Hi there. I'm Zachary.

I'm a co-founder of Nobel Prize. Our bakeries located in the Hudson Valley, we make both sweet and savory pies with real ingredients and an all-butter crust. In 2025, we officially launched our wholesale line, and we have three retail stores outside

of New York City and our launching our first New York City store in 2026.

Awesome. Thanks for calling in. So to Nobel pies, sweet and savory pies are based out of the Hudson Valley. How long have you been the pie business? Yeah, our business started in 2008 unexpectedly when the financial crisis hit my family

on the horse business and overnight, we pretty much lost our business, horses are a high commodity item and luxury. So my mother went back to her roots and she resurfaced some old recipes from my great grandmother and she dropped off me, my brother and my sister at the local orchard to pick a bunch of fruit.

We brought the fruit back home, we baked about 50 pies and we set up a little picnic table on the side of the road of our farm and literally within an hour we sold out a pies and

Wow. Tell me a little bit about the business. Where do you primarily sell your pies today? Most of our businesses out of our retail stores and farmers markets and our main wholesale account is fresh direct, okay, and tell me a little bit about your your sales.

“What do you guys expect to do or what'd you do at the last year?”

Yeah, so between our three stores and in 2025 we did about 2.2 million in sales.

Wow. And our first year of wholesale with fresh direct we did about $200,000. And these are frozen pies or fresh pies or selling. These are fresh frozen pies, a single serving, sweet and savory. Got it.

Okay, before we bring our Tom Schovengers and tell me what question you have for us, agree. So since we just launched our wholesale line we feel like we're ready for larger retailers, like Whole Foods and Target. I've applied to their regional supplier programs and did not have any luck in the past for years. So I'm looking for new tools, strategies and approaches that work in today's

market to break through. Yeah, all right, it makes sense. Awesome. I want to bring a Rashid and Pete in, guys. So double pies been doing this for a while, they've got a clear track record.

What do you think? Any thoughts? Questions for Zachary? Hey, Zachary. Yeah, this is Pete.

Great to meet you. Yeah, great job, by the way. You said 2.2 million, I couldn't believe it. I was like, okay, that's great. In terms of scaling from here, what's your capacity and how many pies could you make in

“a day or a week or however, however you're looking at it?”

That's a great question. So we can put out about 10,000 pies per week in the facility that we're in now. And within six months, we can triple that with some modifications of our bakery and a little bit of expansion. And then in terms of distribution, you are, you're shipping these or are you hand delivering

these to the stores or how's that working? Yep. So right now we're self-distribution, so that we can stay as lean as possible. It allows us to reinvest as much as we can into our, into our business so that when it's time to pull the trigger with that bigger account, we can be ready.

Shelf life, how long do these, I get their frozen, but I'm just curious from a shelf life perspective, because obviously when you layer in distribution, you're adding days, it's about four months. Is that a question for you, because frozen pizzas have been, I mean, that's been completely redone, right?

There's all kinds of interesting frozen pizzas, but frozen pie hasn't been upgraded in the same way. So what is the, what is the argument you make that these pies are better than what might be available right now from like the, I don't know, serily or whoever's in the safe way, or even the whole foods of freezer section.

So at noble pies, we're so true to what is actually inner pies, our pies are made with an all-butter crust, our filling is made from scratch in small, smaller batches, but you can be made in larger batches, and we advertise how few ingredients are inner pies, when you go to the grocery store now, those product labels are pretty populated with the ingredients. So that's our marketing and branding point.

And also the fact that we actually try to source as much as we can from New York State. So we also brand, you're getting a taste of New York and the Hudson Valley, because we have tons of farms here, it's a beautiful place. So you're making the argument to a buyer that you are the upgrade from what's whatever's out there right now, that it's, unlike pizza, which has a bunch of options, there aren't

many options and pies, you're that upgrade, but I think and, and Pete and Rashid, you guys can speak to this, which is the reality of buyers for these big chains, whether it's Whole Foods or

Target or whatever, is they don't always discover brands, it's not always their job.

Their job is actually to manage risk, right, and to, to, to focus on velocity, you're, you're basically, you, you, you want to show that by bringing this product on, they are de-risked in a sense. Is that, is that a fair argument Rashid and Pete? That's absolutely, um, you also want to be able to have a good cell story.

And I think one of the stories that Rashid and I were able to get with Choms, it was from the data that we had, was incrementality, meaning we're bringing new customers to the set.

“You need to be able to find a way to tell that story to the buyer, because they need to know”

that you're not just going to be cannibalizing, if he's going to take somebody else out, another brand out and put you in and sale, stay flat, what's the point, right? So he's got to figure out, okay, I'm going to put them in and they're going to bring

new customers to this set that we're never shopping here before and grow the category.

Yeah, and I, and I, I'd add, because you have a four months shelf life, like, that's, I assume that somewhat low in the, I don't know, frozen that well, but I would assume four

“months is probably a little bit on the lower side. So like, you have to prove that you have”

strong velocities that the product will turn and you further have to prove your repeat rate that not only are you going to get that first customer in that they will come back and buy it again. Okay. Is that correct?

You have that data. You're going to have six to 12 months of that, that velocity data. You could focus on one skew, you don't need to show the data for all the products, because at the end of the day, it's the, it's the store manager who's going to be your biggest advocate.

Like, if you can get a store manager to be your advocate with Whole Foods, that's going to have more weight than, you know, you kind of cold calling them, right? Mm-hmm.

I've always wondered if, if that still works in this day and age of Whole Foods and I'm

so glad that you're answering that question for me because I haven't walked in and talked to a store manager just yet. So I'm definitely going to try doing that. I think those are the people you want on your side. And to, like, exactly, to answer your initial question, I think it's good to sound odd,

but like, getting into the retailer is honestly the easiest part of the process. It's, it's staying and performing. So like, you know, you've been in at this for a while, it seems like your product is differentiated. There's something there and it'll succeed in retail, but you're going to succeed if you

“can have some focus, like, pick not just Whole Foods, but you should do the Northease region”

or just a pocket of stores and keep it really focused and build the story and grow over time.

Because the problem is it's right now you're self-distributing.

Once you introduce distribution into your business, it's a level of complexity and cost that you don't fully understand and then you're introduced trade requirements, which you currently don't have and it's like this, this slippery slope will retail sounds great, but sometimes it's just a feather and a cap or a vanity metric, like if you have a model that works in your retail stores and the farmer's market and fresh direct where

it's a direct program, that's great, but you got to continue to grow depth in those channels and then pick one more channel and grow that and then pick another. And that's what we did at Choms, like we're, we say, like we're a 13 year overnight success. I mean, it took us a long time before we approached the targets of the world, right?

Before we went to the club channel because if you go too quick too early, you can really start unraveling and introduce so much complexity and cost where can materially challenge the business.

That's great advice because I always feel like I'm a little fish in this sea and it's true.

I should just stay focused on those first customers and continue to serve them and get that feedback and again, also watch the velocity of the repeat purchasing in the store. Is that correct?

“Are you doing any e-commerce, direct consumer or anything like that?”

We actually used to sell on QVC network. We did for about two years. We don't do it now because shipping costs are so high, but we are looking into doing e-commerce again in the future. Yeah, I feel like I get these frozen pizzas from Geno's East from people in Chicago like

these other, I know it's got a cost and astronomical amount, but they're doing it for holidays or seasonal stuff, so might be something for you to look into, especially if you have people who are just kind of die hard fans of the brand and maybe even just reach out to them and it's kind of survey some of your customers if you have their contact info, but I would just shut a find out from them like would you ever buy these for a gift and just kind of start

small with it and see if it works and then you might be able to scale that from there. That's great advice. Our e-mail box gets flooded every holiday with thousands of e-mails can you ship to California, can you ship to Texas? So I will definitely do that. Awesome.

Zachary Bond or Kohler of Noble Pie, thanks so much for calling in. Good luck. Thank you. Thanks Zachary. Appreciate it. All right, we're going to take another quick break, but we'll be right back with another

Kohler. Stay with us, I'm Guy Roz and you're listening to the advice line right here on how I built this lab. Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab, I'm Guy Roz and today I'm taking your calls with Rashida Lee and Pete Maldonato of Choms. Let's bring in our final call or welcome to the show. Hey guys, before I introduce myself, I just want to say a long time listener for some

call or awesome years and years, but I'm also a huge Champs fan. So we have the piled up in our pantry at my house. So I'm fanboying out a little bit here. I'm going to be perfectly

And we are the official brand of small mouth bass. Awesome. So tell me what you guys make.

What do you sell?

“So we started with kind of the easiest thing we could start with, which is a peril.”

Okay. A peril around the theme of small mouth bass, okay. Yes, exactly. So quite niche. But we, yeah, started doing a peril. And to be honest, I don't want to get too much into it, but I started a podcast seven years ago and sort of found out there was a tribe in this like super nerdy corner of the fishing industry that I was super passionate about. And I was like, hey, I want to work in the fishing industry for a living. And I was like, I'm just going to start

around things. So I partnered with a couple of good friends of mine who are super talented artists.

And we started putting shirts and designs and hats and that sort of thing and put on a Shopify platform. And, you know, we, we've been keeping it rolling. So yeah, I love it. So there's their lifestyle brands. I've said golf and other sports and even fishing. You're focused on like a niche of niche. Small mouth bass, lifestyle brand. And what, what tell me, like, as I'm like your website now, I says, for those who bleed bronze, which is the color of the fish, right? Can you explain

the passion for like fishing for this particular fish? Is it just because they're available? And

“there, or is it just, there's a particularly, just thing about going for this kind of fish?”

Yeah, how much time you got, guy? As I could go on. Well, small mouth are awesome. So they won our native. So it's really cool to think like our, our brand is a chicken, which is the Algonquin word for small mouth. And that translates into one which fights. So they are super awesome fighters. So they jump early high. They're, they're kind of like the hip, cool fish and bass fishing. Large mouth are a little bit like lazy. And I like to move a lot. Small mouth are like crazy.

They are really fun, fun to catch. So. Right. And, and do you really summer do you eat them? Or both? So are we, we say this frequently? Well, actually at the end of every podcast, free the fighter. So we are, we are advocating for conservation. So we definitely promote catching release. Oh, that's cool. So you catch them really some, wow. So it really, it's like about the sport. Okay. So you've got this peril brand. You still share some of your website now.

Sure, tats all around this project. Tell me a little bit about how the business is doing. Yeah. So we're in year, we just started year five. We have expanded into a couple of different things. We run an online or game for fishermen. And then we also just last spring. We launched our

first lure and our line of fishing lures, which is kind of the, in our pipeline, that's the long-term

strategy is like build out a several skews of lures. And then really start to look at getting that into retail. And that sort of thing. We can't produce them fast enough inside of our, or small little office here. They sell too fast. So we're, we're looking for a contract manufacturer right now to do that. And we're also prototyping with the, the stuff we're making in house based on what you're selling right now, what's doing in sales last year. So we just missed the

$100,000 mark last year, which I was, that was a big goal of ours. Hit that. That's still pretty great. Yeah. And, and most of that is coming from hats and shirts. Yeah. The lures definitely are like a a little bit of a hack because we can sell as many as we can make. But yeah, it's still the majority

“of our sales are apparel, just because that's what must for inventory is. Got it. All right. And”

before we dive in further, what's your question for us? Yeah. So I'm at a place in my business where I want to jump off. And I want to do this full time. I have two kids and a wife and I'm not the at the age or position in my life where I can eat ramen for two years. Right. So I have to like have some capital to work with, be able to do this. And it is, you know, you guys talk about cash flow. That's a huge, huge challenge. How, like strategically, what pasture did I take to get to this

full time? Because I have so many things I want to do. Like this is like I'm so passionate about this business and really just fishing in general. Josh, you said to your, you brought it under a hundred grand in sales last year, which is very briefly, what is your full time job? What's your day job? Yeah, I own a medical distribution company. So we sell to do like orthopedic rehab equipment and we we service the local like central Indiana in level area. Yeah. So yeah. And you

that leave, all right, Pete Rashid, you guys, uh, I'm sure a lot of thoughts on this. You started, I mean,

“Pete certainly you had all different kinds of businesses real estate and that didn't work out and,”

you know, and, and then you start this thing. Thoughts questions, comments for Josh. Yeah, I'm going to or she'd kick us one out. I think it's, it's a really interesting topic, especially for Pete and

I because, you know, we always joke around like our partnership was not always great at at the early

days and it's really because, you know, Pete would full time about four years into the business. That was in 2016 and I went full time in 2018. So there was that two year time period where Pete was full time and I was part time and I think ultimately the question I have and you don't necessarily have to answer it, but it's somebody to think about and reflect is like, you mentioned you're doing a hundred thousand, you mentioned you have a family, you mentioned you're not going to

eat ramen, right? So you have to start thinking about it's like, what do you need to support your life and at what point can you scale the business to get there, right? And how much risk can you take? And then how much risk can your partners take to run the business? So it's like those are,

“it's really kind of self-reflection where you have to figure out what can you do to get there?”

And, you know, you have the entrepreneurial spirit as far as like creative and ideation,

but like successes, I always found it's rooted in focus, right? And that's the hard part about it

is trying to figure out, right? You have an apparel business, but I looked it online and it looks like this isn't a, it's not like a functional apparel, right? Where it's like technical gear for, it's right, it's more, it's purely lifestyle, right? But then you transition quickly into a purely functional lure side of the business, right? Because you found a niche. So that's where you try to think about, as I take a step back to say, like, where do you want the brand to go ultimately

and have a clear path to get there? And also when they can support your lifestyle, right? And your family. Yeah, and I would say that it's a little bit of like a self-fulfilling prophecy, right? If you don't go full-time at the business, it's not going to get where you want it to go. Unless you have a viral moment where you have this like breakthrough, which for you guys, that was the call from Trader Joe's, right? Like, you got a call on your like, hey, like, we got a

million dollar PO. Let's go figure out a way to fulfill it. Like, I could keep doing this as, and I'm content to do it for a little while longer, like, just kind of grinding it out and kind of waiting for something to happen. I'm more of a person that wants to make things happen, though.

And I'm like, hey, do I need to raise some money, which I have never done, and we have had people

approaches, a lot of people asking to invest in this business. And it's, I don't, I don't even know what I'm doing. They're just be honest. Do I need to raise money? Right now, we're bootstrapping. So I'm funding it with my personal, you know, finances, which I haven't, I don't, it, it is profitable to the point where I don't have to keep putting money into it. But it's also, like, it's not, I'm not, I don't have a bunch of bankroll that I'm making to be able to reinvest the business.

We just kind of keep doing what we're still doing. So, yeah, Josh, I think I'm going to maybe speak out of both sides of my mouth here, because it's like, okay, you've got this really niche niche audience, which is great, because it's going to allow you to make an impact and build a brand within that small audience for a small amount of money. It's exactly what Rashid and I did within the CrossFit community back in the day. We had no money to do it, but we went door to door and basically

did what we had to do to build a brand within that community. That's, you know, and then we kind of were able to snowball from there and add other communities from there. But I think for me, like, you're, I'm looking at your, you're, you're clothing, and then you have your, your lures. You have a lot of skews across the portfolio here. That's going to require a lot of capital. So it's like, okay, that's going to, if you pull that back, you limit the size of the business.

“It's kind of like, you know, but you have to figure out something. I think you need to focus now”

on what's going to generate the most revenue for you. So you could actually build this to a place where you could actually go full time and focus on it if that's what you want to do. I'm guessing from a margin perspective of the lures, make you more money than the apparel. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, well, we'll always keep a apparel just because I, that's, you know, it's not free marketing, essentially that produces revenue. But yeah, I do think our future is in the lures. And then we

have a couple of other, like, just like things in the pipeline that we've talked about doing, that could be have a wider appeal that we could sell on, like some workplaces like Amazon, that sort of thing. And just to your question, you think about like, you know, what signals that's time to go full time. I think for us, you, you mentioned the Trader Joe's PO, but it wasn't

and we saw that the product was really working. Right. You mentioned the lures. You can't make him fast enough. You keep going out of stock. So like, obviously you have something there. Now what

“you need to figure out at the unlock is like, how do you see what high is high? Right. How do you”

assess true demand? Because if you're going out of stock and you're running out like, you don't necessarily know what the ceiling is. It's like, to me, you need to solve that. And that's going to better understand, like, what is the potential? And then, like, you said most of these technical brands provide a technical offering and they wrap it. A peril is a value ad, right? And so I think you've already proven you have cool fresh designs that it's are going to track. You need to create that

anchor technical solve, which you're circling right now. But once you figure out the unlock and had you scale it, I think that's going to answer your question on are you ready to go? Like, and then then think about retail, then think about it. But like, look, a peat and I love e-commerce. We love direct to consumer. Like, it's such a great way to scale quickly and learn your product and grow. But I think you're close. I think my, my read is like, figure out that unlock on how to scale

the lures faster. Yeah. And all I had to, our brand is like, we don't, we haven't paid a diamond advertising. Like, we don't. It's 100% organic. It's worth a mouth. We use an Instagram. That's kind of our like growth engine. But it's all organic posting. So I feel like when, if I had a little bit of capital to work with, if I had more time, I could pour gas on this fire and I have a path there. It's just like, it's, it's a tough way to, you know, it's a tough way to jump into its scary

“honestly. We have, you have two other co-founders. Correct. Is that, I saw down the website. Yes.”

Yeah. So, you know, Rashid and I, you know, I went full time first. I think we were doing in

like the 400,000 range. Then Rashid didn't come on till we were doing like 20 million. So it was a

big, like big gap. It was like maybe a couple of years later. Yeah. But you could find, you could figure out, like, you know, what works for you guys. Maybe, maybe one of you guys go full time. And the other two are just kind of, you know, working your other job and then you play more of a support role. Or maybe, maybe take, you know, it's like shift work or something like that. But this thing definitely needs full time attention if you actually want to scale. It's, I think that's great advice. I also think,

you know, at the end of the day, you will know when it's time, right? Right now, you're sort of worried about, you can mention you don't want to get ramen and you know, you don't, you can't live on the salary and support a family. But when it starts to feel like doing this part time is riskier, that's when you know. When you start to say to yourself, actually, it's safer for me to

jump into this full time. You will know that. That will be clear to you. Guy, you always have

staging advice. No, I always hear that from you after these interviews. Well, it's an awesome opportunity because you've tapped into something clearly. There's a lot of passion around it. And, and, you know, there doesn't seem to be a lifestyle, a real lifestyle brand around small,

“mouth, you know, bad. So it's a, it's a cool idea. And I, you know, I just, I think it, I think you could”

really run with it. So, so good luck. Thank you guys. I really appreciate you having me on. Yeah, Josh Franco, co-founder of Achigan. Good luck. Keep us posted. Nice job. Yeah, it's, I mean, it really, like, it is amazing to me how there are all of these. And, you know, we, we hear about a lot on the show. These small communities like these niche, what seemed to be niche, but actually they're much bigger people realize, right? Like, all these people who fish for a certain kind of fish,

or who are interested in a very particular kind of watch, or, you know, golf club, or whatever it is. And people are building micro brands around these communities, which are becoming interesting businesses. Yeah, it's, it's awesome. And it's also interesting to kind of think through, but nowadays with AI the way it is, like, because a lot of them were talking about, like, how do I scale and how I build a team and all of these things. And this is something that Rashida and I, back in the

day, we didn't have access to AI. It was all I can strap you and using third parties. I wish I had better advice for them. Because we don't, you know, we don't even know how to use that. But I hear so many times people talking about one person running an entire organization using AI and automation.

And it's amazing. Yeah, absolutely. Guys, before let's go, if I, and I peed extra, I think you

answered this question last time we brought you on, maybe on a different answer now, but I'll start with Rashida. If you could go back to when you guys started Choms and knowing what you know now about the business and how to, you know, and what you've learned, what would have been helpful for you to know, you know, 13 years ago when you guys launched this, this brand. Huh, that's the interesting question. I mean, I think I believe it's fortunate that we

Like we had a lot of folks in our year giving us advice, but we just did what felt right. I think

“I'm glad that we win a little bit blind and ignorant and I think it allowed us to, to, to,”

to make the right decisions to build it the way we build it. Yeah, I'm, we still have a lot more work to do, but I think we've built, we have a lot of momentum, more in the right place and the right category with a fantastic product of brand and team. So like, I don't know, I'm glad we win a bit ignorant and we didn't know what we didn't know and I think it allowed us to get to where we are. Yeah, so I would say it's, it's just being patient, right, with time and, you know, staying focused,

things will, will work out, essentially. We've been on this Choms, we call it the Choms

“roller coaster because it's never just linear, right? We're just, we are either, you know,”

having a terrible day or an amazing day and there's nothing in between. That's kind of

around the entire ride since for the past 13 years. So I would say, you know, it's being patient and working through issues, whether and by the way, not getting complacent when things are going great and rosy because it's going to think challenges will come your way, so just be ready for it. Yeah, Pete Maldonato, Rashida Lee, thanks so much for coming back on guys and we appreciate it. Thanks for having us. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it, man. And by the way, if you guys haven't heard

Pete and Rashida original high built this episode, go back and check it out. It's a great terrific episode. You will learn so much. We'll put a link to that in the show notes. And here's one of my favorite

moments from that interview. What was your purchase order for? 1.1 million sticks at it? It was

larger than the previous year altogether in a single PL. Wow. And I'm thinking how this is not what we discussed. This is way more than what we had we discussed. And so I was like, give me a second.

“So I go in my room, build my spreadsheet. I'm calculating the total. What does it actually look like?”

So I'm like, Pete, we need, I don't know, it's like 1.1 something million to be able to fund this. And so we then had to figure out how we were going to get the money to even fill this PO. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. And by the way, please make sure to check out my newsletter. You can sign up for it for free at gyros.com or on sub-stack. And of course, if you are working on a business and you'd like to be on this show, send us a one-minute message

that tells us a little bit about your business and the questions or issues that you're currently facing because we would love to try and help you solve them. You can send us a voice memo at hibt@id. wondery.com or call us at 1-800-433-1298. Leave a message there and make sure to tell us how to reach you and we'll put all of this information in the podcast description as well. This episode was produced by Kerry Thompson with Music Composed by Remteiner of Louis. It was edited by John Isabella

with Engineering from Jimmy Keely. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Elaine Coats, Niva Grant, Norgill, Casey Herman, Chris Machini, Katherine Seifer, and Ramell Wood. I'm Guy Ros and you've been listening to the advice line on how I built this lab.