BOLDER & WISER with Peter Wang and Michelle Kraemer

Kompoocha: from garage to brewery, purpose & resilience, changing the kombucha game

• Peter Wang • Season 1 • Episode 7

Share episode

After a six-month hiatus from the podcast to focus on our water brand, we are thrilled to be back! In our very first in-person episode, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Victoria and Christian, the co-founders of the first Kombucha brewery in Temecula, CA.

Victoria's journey with Kompoocha began in her parents’ garage during the COVID-19 pandemic as a response to her own health issues. Combining her passion for saving dogs with Christian's unwavering dedication and love, Kompoocha has evolved into a beloved brand that thousands enjoy today.

Kompoocha is a story of resilience in the face of adversity and a testament to living life with purpose.

Peter Wang:

Welcome back to the Work In Progress podcast. I'm your host today, I'm joined here by Christian and Victoria, founders of the first Kombucha Brewery Here in Temecula, we'll hear how a health crisis led to a new and more accessible take on kombucha, going from garage to farmer's market to a full fledged brewery. It's a story of resilience, purpose, and heart. Enjoy this episode. We're here in Temecula at the first Kombucha. Brewery. Yeah. What is it called? Kombucha. Brew Kombucha.

Christian:

Kombucha. Wwo. Cheers to the first. Hey. Cheers. Thank you.

Peter Wang:

This, this episode is really special to me. We met a couple months ago,

Christian:

several months, months ago. It's almost a, A year ago ago. Since you almost took over. I took

Peter Wang:

over, actually. I took over in June, the water plant in June. Yeah. Talk abouts

Christian:

for a little second.

Peter Wang:

Victoria. Actually, I met you first. Yes. I took

Christian:

over a water plan.

Peter Wang:

I noticed you had a lot of, I remember she had so many. That's the one thing I noticed. Oh yeah. Yeah. And you had that white, my white Jeep, my Jeep. Your Jeep, la Jeep. Yeah. Your Jeep. But you were quiet. I

Victoria:

was in work mode. I Victoria's always like that

Christian:

get out work mode. She's focused.

Victoria:

Yeah. And also I had to feel you out because we liked the old owners and I was like, not to say we weren't gonna like the new one, but I was like, okay, who is this guy?

Peter Wang:

That's this one Asian replacing the other.

Christian:

Yeah. But then you came in and you've been absolutely amazing. I'm so blessed to be your friend. I'm so happy what you're doing.

Peter Wang:

I remember the first conversation you and I had. Okay. Came in and you are like, where's my business card? I was like, who is this person? And

Christian:

yeah, we had the, our business card taped on the, on the wall? Yeah. On the little plexiglass right there. It came out. It was like, what the heck? They knew how to introduce myself real quick. Hey man, where's my business card? We little

Peter Wang:

conversation. This episode is also the very first time we're doing a live recording on the podcast. I know we did the last two hours setting this

Christian:

up. That is so cool. And it flew by. Yeah.

Peter Wang:

It's so cool. So if anything happens, there's also Ricky behind the camera. Hey, Ricky. Ricky.

Christian:

Hi

Peter Wang:

Ricky. You just, why did you just skip your physics class today? This is better.

Christian:

This is worth it. Hey, well, good answer brother.

Peter Wang:

So how about, what's about this brewery? How did it come into existence in the first place?

Victoria:

From the very beginning? Yeah, let's go back. Okay. We've been together for almost 10 years. I was 19, he was 21. I was going college for biology. And I met Mr. High School dropout. You know,

Peter Wang:

did he always have long hair like this?

Victoria:

No. No,

Peter Wang:

he didn't. No. Okay.

Victoria:

But this is his true calling. This is a recent thing. I got my degree in biology from UCSD. I was gonna pursue either research or veterinary medicine and veterinary medicine.

Peter Wang:

Oh, that's coconut. How? A coconut. Coconut.

Victoria:

This is coconut. She's our rescue. She's our baby. She's our rock. She got us through this. While I was in college, I was. Constantly stressed. I had like stomach issues as a result and kombucha was the only thing that kind of helped subside it. And really when I got into it, I hated the stuff. It was very brand new. Like you'd only get it at like really obscure grocery stores I did work as a vet tech for a few years after graduating with the idea to go into the veterinary field. Wasn't feeling it too much anymore. Felt a little lost, didn't know what I wanted to do. Got a few jobs like here and there I had just got hired at a really well paying waitressing job. Something to get me through. And I had just gotten hired day one, and then they closed down for Covid. Oh. So then we staff got laid off for Covid. It was a big place, so they laid off everybody. And that led us to feeling like we had the opportunity to test the waters, try something new, and starting to brew kombucha as a hobby. And then with all this new time that I had, I decided to get more into it. Made some new recipes. Ended up falling in love with some, got him to like some of them, which he hated. Kombucha.

Peter Wang:

Mm-Hmm. And you started in a garage, right?

Victoria:

Yeah, so we started in my parents' garage and I had, I can picture it now, like the fermentation. It was so like thrown together, so no idea what I was doing. I was trying to brew small commercial vessels in my parents' garage and that was funny.

Peter Wang:

How did they feel about you starting Kompoocha?

Victoria:

In the beginning? Probably okay. And then probably about, six, eight months and I was still just doing kombucha. Like places were starting to hire back. I could have gotten another job. I was just still brewing kombucha in the garage and talking about maybe starting a business brewing kombucha They weren't thrilled about the smell for sure. They weren't thrilled about the smell of kombucha in their house. So I don't blame them for that. Um, but once you make your first sale, and especially our first day selling, that was,

Peter Wang:

yeah. What was your first day like? What was the first flavor?

Victoria:

First flavors that we still have were lavender lemonade and blueberry mojito. Those were the first two flavors. Is that because that's your favorite? Lavender Lemonade was his and blueberry was mine. Oh. I's what I had at my disposal. Mm-Hmm. Those were just came to mind. Mm-Hmm. Those were the ingredients that I had access to at the time. We liked the final product, so we stuck with those and we were putting them in bottles at the time when we first started, versus cans. Like cans or tap, yeah. We like pre bottle them. Similar to bottles. Like for your water. Yeah.

Peter Wang:

Yes. You bring one. Nice cans, I love your cans.

Christian:

I don't have a hand on me. I have the original bottle though.

Peter Wang:

Oh yeah. Bring that.

Christian:

This was the original bottle. So you were selling this at Farmer's Market? Yep. That was first thing. Amber bottles. And

Peter Wang:

did you sign this yourself?

Victoria:

That's what I spent most of the time working on in the middle of Covid was drawing, designing business plans. I love it. Um, I had to make a hasp plan to send to the state health department. That's what took the most time, right?

Peter Wang:

Yeah. So you were doing this in your parents' garage. You started doing this brewing, the parents'

Victoria:

garage, designing everything off. Actually, I borrowed like my dad's little work iPad, draw on his iPad. I just used what I had and

Peter Wang:

and at which point did you feel like, okay, I can take this commercial. Not only I'm gonna drink it myself, I'm gonna sell this.

Victoria:

It took, I feel like it took three things to fall into place. It took being happy about the design. I don't know, marketing, but I felt like I learned a lot about marketing from my own experience. Yeah. As being as a consumer. Oh yeah. As a consumer. The success of a business requires so many different things to be on top of. It's not just how good your product is. Yeah. Design specifically is like more important than ever. With so many things on the shelf, how do you know which one's gonna be best? It's gonna be what you gravitate towards. Which one speaks to you? I knew it was very important that I was in love with the design.

Peter Wang:

Tell us about the dog that inspired this.

Victoria:

That was Bella. So she was a pit bull. She passed shortly before we pursued the company. And so pit bull was just like, the breed was very important to us. So I wanted the logo to be at Pit Bull. Mm-Hmm. And also in that we were going after, which was helping dogs in Riverside County, Southern California. The three breeds the most at risk in the shelters are Pit Bulls, Huskies, and German Shepherds. Those breeds are massively overpopulated. People are breeding them in their backyard like no other, and just adopting'em out to people that don't know what they're doing, dunno what they're getting themselves into. Especially Huskies and German Shepherds. They're energetic dogs. You might get a little luckier with a pit bull, but also a lot of people adopting the pit bulls want a intense, tough dog. And then they get them, find out they're little babies.

Peter Wang:

Hmm.

Victoria:

And they're like, I don't want this dog anymore.

Peter Wang:

And what happens?

Victoria:

They just take'em back to the shelter and the shelter's overpopulated.

Christian:

Or if they don't put'em in the shelter, some of them just drop'em off to the streets.

Victoria:

These days. Dropping them off on the streets may give them a better shot. You drop a dog off at the shelter. Especially one of those breeds, the, the chance that they're gonna make it out alive is like the worst it's ever been.

Christian:

They have a pretty high, unfortunately high euthanasia in Riverside County.

Victoria:

It's the worst it's ever been. Post covid. All the dogs that got adopted during Covid, it was a mass drop off everybody as soon as they went back to work, as soon as the kids went back to school, as soon as life got busy again, I don't have time for this dog. They dropped him off at the shelters.

Peter Wang:

Wow.

Christian:

The but also a big one. Why the logo is after Bella is really important to me. And after, after she passed, it was really hard, that same feeling she gave me, we wanna share with the planet. So that's why I give 15% of all proceeds to animal rescue in the name of Bella, in name of all dogs. I hope everyone gets to experience that. She's taught me so much about life without saying one word of English. No matter what my mood was of the day, she was always there by my side. She was just my best friend. And that's why I also went full vegan the day she passed. Why am I putting an animal in my mouth when the, when my best friend was one? And I feel like a lot of animals don't get a chance, uh, to even get that feeling. Mm-Hmm. I just really wanna try for people to experience the feeling of animals. And

Peter Wang:

so you got all the feeling, the pieces, you got the marketing. Yeah. You got the recipe down.

Victoria:

Yeah. Yeah. So that was, it was mission a good product? The purpose came when one day we were messing around with the possibility of actually turning it into a business. And I was like, okay. I wanted to pursue helping dogs. That's why I wanted to go into vet medicine. If I'm gonna do not do vet medicine and if I'm gonna do a different career, I still need to help dogs in some way. It just came to my head at one random moment. You do both? Yeah. Yeah. Kompoocha I was like, oh my God, I love that name. Kombucha. It's perfect. And I was like, oh my God, wait. Kombucha. And then we can donate the proceeds to animal rescue. And at the time I was like, oh, I was in Wonderland. So I was like, I'll donate all the pros to animal rescue. Yeah. I'll just work another job and I'll have the kombucha company, but that's impossible.'cause this takes up all of our time. That was the goal. And as soon as that idea came about, I was like, oh, we have to do this. Mm. Like we have to do this. And then as we kept going and we saw all these other reasons why this could actually work. Oh, there's no other kombucha in the county. What? Mm-Hmm. I realized that when I started talking to the health department, started trying to get the permits going and they're like, oh yeah, you're the first like one to go through the process and actually get through it because it's the hardest in the county. We have a very difficult health department. Our county is very notorious for being, being very by the book. San Diego County is a little bit more lenient. That's why they have 10 kombucha breweries. So they were like, congratulations, you're the first one to get through. I'm like, oh my God. So no local competition. Mm-Hmm. Okay.

Peter Wang:

Um, what makes you feel like you can make a better kombucha?

Victoria:

To me, to be very honest, this came from Christian. I wasn't out to make a better kombucha. I was out to make a good kombucha and introduce it to the area. To do that. We realized pretty early on to introduce it to the area and get them to like it. It had to be a little easier to drink. Hmm. Like first couple batches. I wasn't trying to intentionally make them smooth. I was making it the way I was accustomed to, which is intensely harsh. Mm-Hmm. Because that's what I'd been drinking for eight years.

Peter Wang:

What's the typical recipe for the typical kombucha?

Victoria:

It's black tea sugar, black tea. Green tea, some sort of tea. Mm-Hmm. Sugar and the culture. You can tweak it by the different types of teas, different types of sugar sources.

Christian:

After a couple batches, and

Victoria:

then after a couple batches, we just kept tweaking the recipe slightly. I can't say exactly how we tweaked it, but we were tweaking it slightly here and there so that we could get more people to drink it. And it only took maybe a couple batches, a couple weeks it got much smoother. And we were testing that out. And more people at the farmer's market were like, oh, okay. I drink this. I've tried this grocery store one, but I'll drink yours. Yours is easier.

Christian:

One, one big thing is, in my opinion, I believe that kombucha is more of a niche before kompoocha is it has that strong vinegar bite and floaties in the product. And I like to say we're the first one is truly without dumping artificial flavors or pouring more sugar on top of it, we have our magic that now you're just tasting straight flavor. You're not gonna get a mouthful of yeast. No company has done so it's a whole new drinking experience. No longer do you gotta be scared. Now we're hitting people. With this product, they have never drank kombucha. Mm-Hmm. Now their favorite drink is kompoocha woo woof. And it's been absolutely amazing. Mm-Hmm. Uh, and

Peter Wang:

it's gonna be ironic because Momen, they might think this is kombucha. They Yes. And then when they actually taste kombucha, like, wait, that's not

Victoria:

Exactly, and that's literally had a customer do that yesterday, he was like, I haven't gotten your product in a while. So I caved and bought something at the grocery store thinking, oh, it shouldn't be that different. He made such a scene about he came in, he pulled a picture up of the brand. He's like, this is what I tried. And we're like, oh really? He's, oh my God, never again. I'm coming back for yours. I'll, I'll wait for yours next time.

Christian:

And that's, that's so cool. Hearing that is just, sounds sort like it. It's cool. And we got a lot of people drinking it like on a try. Kombucha. No, I hate that stuff. Now come over here and give it a try real quick.

Peter Wang:

Yeah. Actually, let's talk about that a little bit.'cause you guys started in the farmer's market over Vail Headquarters. Tell us about that first day

Christian:

So her first day was a Tuesday over at Vail headquarters. I got off my shift and

Victoria:

he met me. Yeah. He met me over to help me sell, and he saw that I wasn't, I'm not a salesperson. Yeah. I always knew this about myself, but I knew it even more in that moment. I just sat back and I just waited for people to show up. And I know that's not the way to do things now, especially when you're starting a company. Mm-Hmm. But I didn't know any better. He saw that and he took it upon himself to just get up, get in front of the booth, like. And start pouring samples. Ask people, Hey, come here, come try this. Yeah. And I'm just like, okay.

Christian:

Yeah, that's uh, right. I was tired. I was

Peter Wang:

rude. You had your night shift, what was like a eight, no, 12

Christian:

hour shift. What is it? Yeah, I was, it was about 12 hour, and I was working beforehand too. I was putting on a lot of hours Got off. And yeah, Victoria was trying to sell and she wasn't really, I don't have it in, she, she wasn't really selling. She put a lot of work into it. I was like, I'm not gonna see her get sad. And I jumped in and grabbed the first person and it was pretty hard selling kombucha's known to have that vinegar bite. So that's already a negative for people. It was pretty cold outside. And we have to sell a cold product and get'em to drink that. So that's a double negative. It was in the middle of Covid. Yeah. And it was in the middle of Covid. The only things open were farmers markets and stuff. There was a lot of uphill challenges we've had to go through, but we've sold out since day one. I jumped back there and I wasn't taking a no from answer from really anybody I was trying to be,

Victoria:

you took a, we have nothing to lose kind of approach.

Christian:

Yeah.

Peter Wang:

When you first started, like that day, can you remember at, in that day, what did it feel like?

Victoria:

It felt very good. It, yeah, I, I remember our very first Instagram post was an image I took of the booth when we had ended, I remember feeling accomplished. I remember feeling grateful, and I put in the caption, day one, done. Mm-Hmm. Here's to many more. And I did moment Should frame that one moment. Oh yeah. Yeah. No kidding, right? Yeah. I did in that moment think, wow. We're like, this is the start of something. Yeah. We were

Christian:

also like, after the day we had a conversation of, there's two directions we went. Could have gone with the company. It was wholesale route or the market route. Yeah. We chose to go market event route and we hit'em really hard. Our idea was we wanted to have the community know us personally. Personally, just know the company, what's coming out, know us as people. Yeah. Know us as people, know the owners. Also the brand and what we're doing. We needed, we felt like to do that before then going into stores and just gambling and rolling the dice. And just hoping our product sells. We went out to all the markets events so we're not foreign to people once we're in grocery stores. We feel like we've done a pretty good job of going out and reaching people and telling'em about Kompoocha and now we think we're ready for the next step, go all all in with the bar and in-house sales and wholesale, which I am so excited for.

Peter Wang:

So one thing I wanna ask you guys, it's being about what, 2, 3, 3 years? Four years. Three years. Three years, okay. You've now going from the first farmer's market. You have wholesale accounts, which I'll go back to'cause I would love to hear the story about your first wholesale sale. Who, who was it, who was that one?

Victoria:

He went E

Christian:

Marketplace. He went e Yeah. Eat Marketplace. Oh, E

Victoria:

Marketplace. Whole

Peter Wang:

fancy brunches. Don't yous talk about that real

Christian:

quick? Yeah, let's talk about that. So, yeah, our first wholesale account was, uh, each marketplace. They're an old town Temecula. Yeah. It's a nice place. Yes. Nice place. Support local companies. So we had a scare with one of our animals. So we had to go to the animal hospital very early in the morning. Mm-Hmm. We dropped her off and it was gonna be several hours. We were still fresh with our company. I had randomly some bottles with us in a cooler. I had it in my head because we were having a really bad day and we went over to Eats, try to pick up the spirits. So we sat down and we ordered and we were still pretty sad and I just really wanted to change the mood. Mm-Hmm. So I seriously just got up, went over to their bar and asked for a manager and a manager showed up and I told her everything about Kompoocha, that we're the first local ones in the whole county, in the city history, we're different. We give back to animals and we took a spin on it that no company has done and it's really sold her. And she came over to tried for samples and she tried the lavender, the blueberry, and the cinnamon pear. The moment she tried those, she said, we would love to have you guys in here. And that was our first wholesale account. I got that account in my anime shirt and some gym shorts and slippers because we had to sprint outta the house. Victoria was in pajamas, like spur of the moment. Yeah. I was. But uh, it's really cool. And

Victoria:

Don, they were a very big supporter of us. They had definitely helped put us in the eyes of the community. Yeah. Because they are a staple in this community. When they started advertising, look what we have, look what we brought in. Try them. They're our friends. It was that starting point to be like, okay, we're a part of this community now. People know about us. Now it wasn't just us. Yeah. Going to farmer's markets. Now it was us going to farmer's markets and working with another well established, well known. Local business. Yeah.

Christian:

That was cool. And then when they ordered their first kegs and everything, that was like, yeah, that was cool. I'll never forget our first kegs choked up. That was, that was really cool. And then expanded. It's a lot more now. We got a lot, many more accounts now and it's just been a ride, man. It's

Peter Wang:

you. So cool. You go over the place for deliveries, right?

Christian:

Yeah, we, oh, we do all of our own canning ceiling labeling, and, uh, delivering. Yeah. I think you go wild. Wild. Yeah. We have one of our great counts. Creekstone.

Victoria:

That was a cool one. Before we even started doing wholesale, he actually just emailed us randomly. Oh, really? Yeah, we have a new modern hotel in Idlewild and we wanna offer free kombucha to our guests. Complimentary kombucha. And I was, I was looking for local kombucha and you came up. And wanted to see if you guys sell kegs. And we weren't selling any wholesale product then We didn't have enough product to do that. Mm-Hmm. And I told him, I said, yeah, we do. Yeah, we'll give us a little bit. Gimme a few months and I'll get back to you. And I probably waited six months until we were ready and I emailed him again and I said, okay, we're ready. Are you? And are you still on us? And he was like, yeah, let's do this. And he was on, I would almost argue actually our first wholesale account, that more first consistent point he coming after he came looking for us and he was like, oh yeah, I want you guys. He loved the local aspect and they've, and the mission,

Christian:

everything really Awesome. Yeah. The Creekstone has been really huge. Number one in Idlewild in my opinion. And deliver it every single time. It's a beautiful drive. And then also from doing all this also to, uh, taught myself how to do a kegerator maintenance, redo the kegerator, set up CO2 lines to clear lines, clean lines, and a lot of things could go wrong. Uh, your lines could get clogged depending on what temperatures in the refrigerator. Mm-Hmm. It could freeze up. Your lines. Might not be, not be tight enough. So you're losing PSI, you're not getting enough carbonation. Just stuff like that. I see. So what's your approach? I'll redo it. I'll retying up all the lines. I'll shoot it with more PSI to make sure that it's flowing correctly. If your line's dirty, I'll clean the lines. Mm-Hmm. Just basically just touch everything up. Tying everything up. Lube everything up. And there's been several accounts at there at break, and I just come in there and I fix'em up that's another little step we do with kombucha when I go out to deliver kegs. Yeah.

Peter Wang:

So you guys, okay, let's recap real quick. So first day of Farmer's Market, right? Got over that hump feeling great about it. Then it seems like you turn something that could have been a bad day where there's a rejection in the farmer's market into a good day. The morning you heard potentially bad news about your dog and say, okay, let's turn this day around. And you had your first wholesale and there's a lot of resilience, I feel like in your life. Have you always feel like you're resilient or. He had to be. You had to be.

Victoria:

I had a no way. He was raised a girl grew

Christian:

up, I had a interesting lifestyle brought up, made me who I am today without going into that much detail. But I gotta say I am very, it's hard to say. I'm very proud of what's happened to me. It was the most difficult stuff, but I never gave up. I always believed in myself. Got me to this point. I dropped outta school and I, everyone, once I dropped out, all the teachers and everything, said trouble would follow me for the rest of my life. Mm-hmm. I'd get in a lot of trouble. And here I am, 12 years later, owner of companies and, mm-Hmm. First kombucha brewery. And I'm making something myself. And if I listened to everybody growing up on how to speak, how to dress, don't do this, don't do that. I wouldn't be the person I am today. I. Ignored all that. And I did what I thought was best for myself and my future. And, uh, once I met Victoria, I knew right then and there, she's the love of my life and this is, we're gonna, we're gonna do great things. And I gave all my effort and everything to her and the company, and this is where we're at. And I'm so happy to be in this spot. And my lifestyle beforehand gave me this shield for the community, helped me go out and for rejection, like outward selling at the market. Come over here, try. No, I'm not trying that. So the rejection part was easy for me. I just get that outta here. And, uh, next one. Next one. Next one. Next one. Not taking no for an answer. Never take no for an answer. Mm. Failure is not an option for me. So we just, uh, I'm trying really hard and yeah, just doing what we think is best for ourselves and the company.

Peter Wang:

Now, how have you guys changed over the last four years as individuals?

Victoria:

We've probably aged 20 years.

Christian:

Three. I feel like it. Yeah. I look like it. Look like

Victoria:

it. We've grown in positive ways, for sure. Positive ways. We've grown in positive ways for sure. Learned a lot. I was much quieter, much more antisocial, and I've become forced to not be that way. That's a good quality in myself. We're both couch potatoes. If it was completely up to us, neither of us would ever leave the house, but that was three years ago. Now we, this is being out and being with our customers and. That's, it was a, it's a whole new feeling that we never thought we would feel, and now it's like we crave it. Like it, we, we'll go like a purpose. Oh yeah. Mm-Hmm. We'll go like when we would used to just do markets, like we'd brew on the weekdays and then do markets on the weekends. Mm-Hmm. The weekdays would get very depressing. It'd get very, oh God. Okay. This just go through the motion like getting ready for the weekend. Yeah. Getting, and then we get to the weekend and then three customers in and we're like reminded, oh, why we're doing this. This is why we're doing it. Yeah. This is cool. All our customers like bring, put so much energy into us. They're like, they're, there's no other way to describe it other than they energize us. And now that's a feeling we never would've felt if we just stayed in our comfort zone and didn't good out there. And now that we've felt that, we're like, oh my God, this is life. Feeling that feeling of the connection. Feel life and, and feeling that feeling of like, of. These people enjoy being around you and enjoy you as people and enjoy what you're doing. And they and their beliefs align with yours. They wanna help dogs, they wanna be healthy. Hmm. It's, yeah.

Christian:

It's just, it is just, it's just unreal. It's, it's a different feeling when you got people coming up and saying, this is the best kombucha I've ever had you guys' mission. I just love you guys as people. I love you guys as a company that it started with just this, that that means a lot and then it just kept going.'cause kept growing, just kept growing. And now it's thousands of people now and it's just, wow. And what made it this far is just the people that have supported it.

Victoria:

It used to be they would enjoy the product and now after three years, it's like they enjoy us as people. Mm-Hmm. And now'cause they've become family to us, like we have, I can, I, I keep saying like yesterday, the day before,'cause these things happen. They happen all the time. What was it, two days ago, three days ago, somebody came in and we weren't even open and she thought that we were, and we had planned to be, and she showed up like, are you guys open? And we're like, no, I'm sorry but we'll still help you. We'll still help you. Sorry. It's a mess in here. Yeah. And she was like, don't worry about it. I love you guys, I love what you're doing. She just went into this whole like, massive speech about like how much she loves us as people and she, how she drives from Huntington Beach to get her refills and she would follow us anywhere. Feels really good. Good. And it's so's what I'm saying, like in the beginning, what got people like heard? To be a part of this journey with us was the product. But now, three years later, it's us. It's

Christian:

the whole package. And they're like, yes, it been so long with us. Now they're learning stuff about us. And we're getting so much support of just at the end of the day,'cause it's just Victoria and I. Mm-Hmm. We knew nothing about anything. Mm-Hmm. Absolutely nothing. And we self-taught everything to this point. I remember

Peter Wang:

coming here when this brewery was just an idea. Yeah. And seeing you guys epoxying the

Christian:

floor power washing came first and then boxing the floor. And then measurements on

Peter Wang:

the floor. Floor. Concrete opened up.

Christian:

Concrete walls. The walls there. Walls. Yep. It's been all new plumbing. All drywall. FRP are on walkins. Just been one hell of variety of janitorial, sink, pro produce, sink hand, washing sink, a lot. Just that absolutely everything.

Peter Wang:

Now what has any ti has? Have you ever, somewhere along the lines. Should we be doing this? Are we crazy?

Victoria:

Oh, off all the time. Yeah. Several times. Several

Christian:

times. Daily. We've never taken a paycheck since we started it. So it's sometimes it gets a little difficult financially. We've had to make all kinds of sacrifices. So it's been pretty difficult doing this and still living our lives. We don't have a social life. It's been difficult, but we're trying really hard.

Peter Wang:

This is the sacrifice.

Christian:

Yeah. This is the, we understand what we're trying to build and we wanna build a life for each other and have a future. We're doing all this right now, so hopefully we won't have to do anything I. Later

Victoria:

on. Hope so that we can do what we really,

Christian:

truly want to do later on. Yeah, that's, I better said, environment that rescue dogs. Rescue, sit back, help companies, help invest in some companies. Help dogs. Dogs.

Peter Wang:

Was there, was there anything that from the first day of Farmer's Market to opening up this brewery that you would say, okay, I, I, if I had known there's three things

Victoria:

that we wouldn't have done it, that

Peter Wang:

no more like. It would've been a lot easier if we had known these things. If we had known these.'cause a lot of people are going maybe go through the same thing. They might be opening breweries, but they're like trying to make their own dreams come true. Yeah.

Victoria:

There's nothing we've had, we've talked about this before. I don't think there's anything we wish we had known Yeah. Or done any differently.

Christian:

The three things, what you should do

Victoria:

when you, but we, but the thing is, we did those things. There's, we have no regrets about how we did this. We have no regrets. Like about, oh, we wish we knew that. We wish we knew that. I guess I wish I was born with the knowledge of how to apply for a business license and apply for permits, but like, that's really it. Everything else we learned. We really put everything in. We have no major regrets. If you would've asked us a year ago. A year ago,'cause we didn't even have the brewery, we didn't know this place existed. I would've said, yeah, I wish. So I knew more about the leasing process. Mm-Hmm. And finding the buildings and what it takes to get a building and how much money you need to get a building. And, but now that we're here, I don't, I wouldn't say that because we ended up where we were supposed to be.

Peter Wang:

And how did you beat up everyone? In terms of getting

Victoria:

this place specifically a great place. Our, we quite literally did beat everybody, but I have to give the credit to our landlords for that. Our landlords are absolutely amazing landlords were that, and that's where it all comes back to, it felt meant to be like, we got turned down by so many establishments. We had a realtor who was helping us for the first time. We'd had her for maybe two weeks and her and I were just going back and forth, sending each other options. She would reach out to them for us. She got turned down like 10 plus times. And then I sent her this one. I was like, Hey, this one used to be a distillery. It was in the same family that has a bar like I, this kind of seems awesome. It's in our price range. It's. Footage. All the above. It seemed too perfect. Mm. And I knew that, so I was prepared to not get it. Mm-Hmm. And she pursued it. We didn't get turned down immediately, although it was taking a while. It was scary. There was a lot of, it was scary at, there was a lot of back and forth. Long story short, our landlords, when they finally did come across our application, they'll tell you, it felt like they found what they were looking for. They looked through tons of applications and when they saw ours, they were like, that's, was it a story that was your mission? It was. It was a lot from, I won't speak for them. I'm trying to remember exactly what they've told us. They did

Christian:

investigate us and went to to call wholesale accounts and asked about us. They, yeah, they, oh wow. Yeah, they did. Yeah, they did. They were like private investigators, but they were looking, Hey, I respect them for doing

Victoria:

it. That's amazing. They were looking for somebody that would use the space. Wow. That would, they would take advantage of the bar. That would, it's their baby. Everything. Yeah. It was their baby. So they wanted somebody that was going to use their baby, treat it right, treat it well, do everything to work with it. They saw us, they were advised, really, maybe we weren't the best candidates being Mm-Hmm. Being such a fresh business. But they did their due diligence. They went to our wholesale accounts. They, we talked a little bit in person and they had zero doubts. And they told us that every day since they felt like this was meant to be, we felt like it was meant to be. So That's incredible. There's no other way to describe it other than it was meant to be.

Christian:

Yeah. And they, and then Victoria also wrote them a nice letter. Oh

Victoria:

yeah. I had a desperate moment where I felt it was, I was getting very, we were getting close to the holidays and I was like, God, I can't, I, I wasn't hearing back. I was like, it scary. It's scary. Spent a couple weeks and I knew it was getting close to the holidays and I didn't want this to go in. Into the following year. I was like, I need to get this done before Christmas. And I think shortly before Christmas I sent a one page letter, essentially a very personal letter explaining every reason, trying to get in their head basically saying, if you're worried about this, don't be because blah, blah, blah. If you're worried about our age, if you're worried about our finances, if you're worried about this that don't worry. Yeah.

Peter Wang:

This is why you should worry. I think that's a great, that was a great move. Even though it felt like a move of

Victoria:

desperation. Oh, it was. That's the thing. I didn't jump into it. I knew it was gonna sound desperate. I did not think it was gonna work. But then when we did talk to them in person, it took a little bit, but eventually he mentioned that letter was

Christian:

actually what that letter is. The thing. He did it and it was, that was cool. Yeah. That was

Peter Wang:

never gave up.

Christian:

That's that. Yeah. Never gave up. And so I never read that letter. So I honestly, for people that want start a company, three things, and you have confidence in yourself. Do everything to your company. And one big thing, don't let anybody dictate your life or tell you what you could do or not do. Truly, it sounds corny, but once you put your mind to it in your effort, seriously, anything's accomplishable. So never doubt your doubt yourself and just don't give up. Honestly. Take the swing you're gonna miss sometimes, but sometimes you can connect. But get up and always take that swing. You'll never know unless you take that swing.

Peter Wang:

Someone said, what do you look for in an entrepreneur? I think it's a question to VC and, uh, someone smartest, someone best credentials. Someone who like can pick teams. What is it? No. Someone who like is like a cockroach. Never gonna die. You find a way to survive.'cause the ones that survive, the ones that writes history

Victoria:

literally. Yeah. And we talked about

Christian:

that. We were on the, that's very bottom once

Victoria:

we started this, you. Yeah. We've had to remind each other that of that a lot more. A lot. Often, very frequently of, yeah. It's'cause Christians questioned, like for how much effort we put in. And I don't blame him for how much effort we put into this. We feel like we should be seeing more tangible results I'll say monetary results. Yeah. Without sounding.'cause again, yeah. We're not in this for the money. We're in this to survive. But this is also our business and everything. But we're getting to the point where it is hard to survive. It's survive. And so you wonder it's, yeah. On the outside looking in it things could look great. You guys have a brewery. You, you have this trailer doing you're open opens seven days a week. Your product's great. The city's supporting you. You guys should be doing great. Yeah. Don't look at our credit card bill set. Don't look at the loans. Don't look at our finances like that. We, I, it's. So it, so it is hard to look at all this and really think that we're doing well when you see the backend. Yeah. And so it is, that's, and we try, you try not to look at that, but you have to, or else you really won't survive. So we, it is easy to be like, I don't, are we doing this? Did we do this backwards? Like we've never lived together in our 10 years of being together. And that's, that's crazy. Like we own a, a brewery, a together. Mm-Hmm. Before we've ever even lived together. All that too. For this too, too. Yeah. It's, it feels backwards. It doesn't make sense. And there's no guidebook to like, is this the way to do things? So it is very easy to be like, are we doing this wrong? Did we do this wrong? Did we make a mistake? It work, is this not? Is Yeah. Is this not gonna work?

Peter Wang:

What's interesting is you're doing a lot of things for the first time. You're making a new recipe for kombucha, your, your relationship and first time starting a company. Mm-Hmm. In a city that didn't have one like this before. So a lot of firsts. Yeah. But that's where is interesting, right, because precisely, the definition of frontier is unknown. It's like you're carving on the unknown. Mm-Hmm. Then you can share your story and say, okay, this is how we did it. Yeah. But how you did it may not be how all the people will do it. Yeah. But you just found

Victoria:

a different way. Yeah. I don't think there, I don't think we could ever create a guidebook of do what we did and it'll work for you. We just did our best.

Christian:

You adapted pretty well. We thought it was right.

Victoria:

Yeah. And being open to adapting. Yeah. That was, that would probably be the only thing I'd say is being open to like to. Not being so set in your ways, oh, if this doesn't work, then screw those customers. Yeah. Like they weren't the right customers.

Christian:

I, I, I've never said that to anybody and I've No, like, I've never really had to disagree. That's what's been really cool about

Victoria:

everything. Three years in and we're still asking customers. Yeah. What do you think about the Too much mango? More mango, like always asking you guys want like, we're like, we are willing to adapt to, to make this work. I would say it's, yeah, just doing your best and being willing to adapt, I guess. That's

Christian:

all I would say. Yeah. We just, because we're this far in everything and we always take advice from people, we, it's go always. We're never gonna be like, no. Like, we are like, Hey, you like, yeah. How was your experience? What do you think about the flavors you have? Yeah. Like what would you like to see? Just absolutely everything

Victoria:

it's been, and our customers know that about us. We had a customer in here, what was it, Saturday morning, very first morning. That was so cool. We open at 8:00 AM He gets here at 8 0 2. He sits down at the bar. He's fully intending on filling up his glass multiple times. He's chilling, we're hanging out, we're talking and he finds a moment to fill it in. He goes, I have a list of flavor ideas that I thought of. I love them. That's so cool. And we're like, dude, yes. They brought, brought a smile on my face

Christian:

too. That's just so cool. Was

Victoria:

like, and that's a common thing of people being like, Hey, I have some ideas. Like what about this? What about that? You think about it and it's almost like this company has become, not just our company, but company for all these other people. Like they want, yeah, they feel like they're a part of it. We, they wanna be a part of it and we want them to be a part of it. We're not just saying that like they're actually giving us ideas and we're following through with some of them. I'm like, yeah, this is a company for the community. That's you.

Peter Wang:

It's a community. Yeah. That's cool.'cause we are living an age now. There's a company for everything. Right. But there's also huge companies where you feel like the relationship is very transactional. Oh, okay. You don't ever go to

Christian:

Walmart? No. That's like

Peter Wang:

everything. Walmart's some really constructive feedback and they'll just listen and do it. You go there and you live in their world and you figure out which companies can provide what you need based on your constraints and the local aspect of it. I think that local revival is necessary because people crave it. They feel like they're participating versus just consuming. Oh yeah. I think this is a good example of that.

Victoria:

And we didn't know if somebody told us in a marketing course that was the way to do things. Mm-Hmm. Okay, great. But nobody ever,

Peter Wang:

we actually did take it. It's, that's why it's authentic, because it's not like I am, it's not means to an end.

Victoria:

No. Yeah, exactly. We were not doing this because the textbook told us. That's right. It just felt right. We saw that it was working and we saw that they loved it and they loved us and they loved being involved, and we're like, bring it on, keep doing it.

Christian:

Yeah, We actually did take a couple classes up north that some what was City was offering or, uh Oh, this was marketing classes. Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I took couple. It was free. It was free. We went up there, I tried it. I think we went two times. Yeah. It was so funny. But I was sitting back in the class. There were other business owners asking questions and stuff. I'm sitting there, but the professional that's giving the course is telling how to do it, and I'm just sitting back, I'm like. We're doing that, we're doing that. Wait really quick. And I asked a question. He's like, oh, you know your stuff. I'm like, no, I'm just doing it. But it was just like, it's like also what works for you might not work for me. So you might be telling me all your stuff that works for you and what your other companies do. So I took the information, brought it back, Victoria and I talk about everything. And uh, we just seriously did what we thought was best. And we did all of our own marketing and all of our own sales, and we took our own spin on it too.

Peter Wang:

And it was, it's cool. From my perspective seeing you guys. Marketing truly is about people. You market to people. How do you tell stories? I think you guys just care about people, so that becomes more natural. You might know the tactic, but you care about people. So everything

Victoria:

scams me out. And I don't think it started off that way either. It started off that we cared about animals. We cared about. That's interesting. Our health and, and then once the people got involved Mm-Hmm. We started making our sales, we started, customers started becoming friends, supporters. Then we're like, oh. Then we learned about, they not circle. Then we learned about caring about the people. Then it became so natural. Yeah. And it became so much bigger than, yeah. Than

Christian:

just cup. It was just, It was just like from farmer's market to brewery that's weren't expecting, that was not expecting to be a role model for kids that come inside. I wasn't expecting to now have brothers and sisters for all of our customers. Mamas, everything like it is, wasn't expecting any of that. Mm-Hmm.

Victoria:

We've got probably about four women that say, call me Mom.

Christian:

Wow. And they, they support me. And like, everything, it's, it's a whole. Your

Peter Wang:

Thanksgiving dinner's only big. Oh, a

Victoria:

hundred percent. We even, yeah, like he's probably got about three separate, like invites.'cause he,'cause I'm the backend, so I say him'cause he talks to everybody. Mm-Hmm. More than me. And he's got like at least three invites to holidays.

Christian:

It's Wow. Yeah. I, yeah. Just real quick, so it might sound weird for people That's that. Hear that. But I don't have a family so people know that about me, our close customers and they invite me over and it's just, everyone accepts me. But that's just an aspect of the company that you're not expecting to do. That's thing now talking and it's just the company grew from just making kombucha. Now we're saving animal lives. Meeting people, meeting other business owners, expanding now working close with the city. Public speaking. Interviews on news stations. And we gotta change ourselves. For the company. And this was never something no one's ever told me. Or what, Hey, you're starting a business. This is what's gonna happen. This is all new. Yeah. And we're, and we, even with all the success, we're still a brand new company. We just hit our three year and we've accomplished a lot. We also took, we're the first ones to take a boots on tap. We have a tap trailer that we were upgraded our normal booth. And once we took that on tap, it was a game changer. And we got into big events.

Victoria:

The idea was Eco-friendly. We were using the glass bottles, which we could have technically tried to reuse, have people bring them back. But it was the middle of Covid. So there was some logistic issues with reusing people's

Christian:

bottles. That's another aspect of the whole company was Covid too. Ah, that's, that was

Victoria:

funny. So eco. But Eco-friendly was the end goal. Reusable bottles. So refilling growlers was the idea how to refill growlers on the spot. We need to serve them on tap. There's some places that will use what's called a jockey box, which is just an ice chest outfitted to serve tap. Yeah. We got jockey box too. Yeah. We could have done that. And I'm glad we didn't'cause we would've gotten comfortable. It's easy. Yeah. And definitely more financially. I think half assed a little bit if No, no, sorry. Okay. But it's necessary. Sometimes it's necessary because of finances. And that was for us as well. Yeah. It was necessary because of finances. I have to give it to my parents. They, at that point, they started, took a little bit. Mm-Hmm. But by that point, they saw the potential. By this point, they were very interested and believing and wanted to do what they could do to help. That's cool. Mm-Hmm. And so the conversation came up of how can we speed this up? We didn't wanna get lost in the sea. Of potential competition in case anybody did start to see us doing well. Oh, I could do this better. And who is at

Christian:

our first vegan depot, they saw our A line and started seeing us

Victoria:

and they're like, wow. Yeah. So we're like, we're starting to get noticed. They're actually, we need to

Christian:

try and doing something. We need to try and customer base.

Victoria:

That's cool. We need to try and do this. We need to speed this up. Yeah. So we can really put our name on the map. Yeah. And so that conversation came up with my parents and we had heard of tap trailers before. We found a place up in NorCal that made them custom. We were gonna put that on hold. We'll wait a year until we get the money. Mm-Hmm. And I'll give it to my parents. They stepped in, how they stepped in, they said, well, we're gonna get the trailer for you now. Appreciate, really appreciate that. So I, I, we, I have to give that to them for sure. And the, and we always, that helped the, a lot, we always tell people the trailer is what put us on the map. Yeah. Mm-Hmm. It was so unique. It impressed a lot of event coordinators. Yeah. And so they were coming to us saying, we want you at our market. They want the tap

Christian:

trailer tap. We want you. We made a custom bar top for it too. So it looks like it's an experience when you're coming over at these events, so it looks like a bar. And then we had our custom canopy that had kompoocha all wr written around it. It propelled us different from being different experience. Totally different

Victoria:

experience home brewing To a legit company. To

Christian:

a prof. Yeah. Yeah. To a professional looking company. And it was absolutely insane the moment we filled that thing up with our kegs. It was so insane the day we went to an event and we drained every single keg. That was cool. And yeah, we just kept going and that was really cool. So I feel like

Peter Wang:

the trailer was definitely a trailer was, yeah. Key moment in com. Kombucha's lives

Victoria:

a hundred percent.

Peter Wang:

That's

Victoria:

when it was not game changer. And we knew that before we made that purchase. My parents made that purchase because there's no going back. Yeah. This is, this is,

Peter Wang:

let's talk about your partnership. You guys seem to work really well. I remember coming here first time to this before you guys working on this and you guys are doing some hard physical labor. I'm like, a lot of relationships don't survive a move or redecorate. They say if you're like, redecorating a move, it's a good test for your Mm-Hmm. Also opening breweries though. Great test

Christian:

company. Yeah. You, how do you guys, yeah. How do

Peter Wang:

you guys

Christian:

compliment each other? You answer everybody. There's

Victoria:

not an easy answer. I, I got

Christian:

in my answer. Okay. What's your answer? How it's been? I would love, wouldn't pick anyone else, honestly. And Victoria and I work so great together. I'm really easy going. Victoria's the love of my life. So honestly, I just go with the flow. Whatever she wants to do. I'm just so happy to be a part of her life. I just really wanna make sure she hits those dreams and I'm here supporting, so I give her all my, give her all my energy, basically just the laborer, the wholesale guy. I just make sure her life is as easy as possible. I just try really hard to do that. And I just love her. So it's, everything's easy. A lot of people go, oh, you're working with your loved one. You guys must bicker fight all the time. Mm-hmm. And I'm the same back one. No. And I hear other people that work together that are couples and they just fire'em. Just, man, you guys really love each other like you guys. But I'm absolutely lucky I get to have a business with the love of my life. She's my best friend, do everything together and would've don't want anyone else to work with. So if I had to do it again, I would 100% pick. Victoria

Peter Wang:

sounds so simple. Yeah. So far I guess there's an easy answer. Yeah.

Christian:

Yeah. Seriously, her, her, I really feel unstoppable with this team we have is a great one, two combo. We compliment each other. We're a little opposite.

Victoria:

Yeah, that's, I was, that's what I was gonna say is that would be my version of the easy answer is we've always known since we've known each other that we're opposites.

Peter Wang:

And you are like, what's,

Victoria:

I mean, we've changed since then, but I'd still say for the most part we're opposites. But there was a time when I was the more quiet one, he was the more outgoing one. We've balanced each other out since. And I'm a little bit more outgoing and he's a little bit more quiet sometimes. Yeah. So like we, we balance, but at the end of the day, I'll just say the opposite ness in us allows us to be there for each other when the other needs the help. We're not like taking things head on both at the same time. If we need to, we can, but for the most part it's like Christian's like, okay, I got this today. Like I, I got, I'm on this, you take this, you take that, or, or I'm feeling a little down or vice versa, pick each other. I'll take that. You do that like it's works so well together and it helps us to also separate responsibility so that we're not. Bumping heads, like he's the salesman. I will completely agree. I have no sales skills whatsoever, so I have no problem being like, okay, sales wise, you do it. He'll ask me like, what do you think about this? I'm thinking about doing that. How do I, how about I approach it this way? I'm like, great. I have nothing to say about that. I completely trust you. Not that you need to, but you have proven yourself to be the best salesman that I know. Who am I to argue?

Peter Wang:

There's a lot of trust. There's a lot of trust in this relationship.

Christian:

Trust is key. And any relationship, not even relationship, but a team. You gotta trust the person next to you. If you don't trust the person next to you. I'm just telling you right now, I don't care what it is, it's not gonna work. Yeah. That you have to 100% trust and, it's not a one man show with anything.

Victoria:

We do constantly us asking each other. Are you okay with this? I, I wanna do this. Are you okay with that? Are you sure? Okay. You wanna give your 2 cents? We can do this together. No. Okay. I'll take over that. Or you do wanna be involved? Okay. Let's talk about this. That's pretty cool. Like just being very, before we make any major moves, just being, and, but then a lot of times some of those things will come to, even if we're, even if one of us is not really, but you know what? Like we win some, you lose some. We're not here to fight and that's where the trust comes back in. It's, I don't really agree, but if you really, truly believe that, go for it. Mm. I you, I

Christian:

support you. Go for it. There, there's been a couple of those conversations, right?

Victoria:

Yeah. Yeah. That happens. And when, and it they happened more often, more recently because there's so much going. Yeah.

Peter Wang:

Do you wanna talk about a few future plans you guys have brewing up?

Victoria:

I was gonna say, we've been open for about a week and already the biggest feedback we've gotten is people want food here. They'll drink more kombucha, they have more food, they'll hang out more often. We're listening and we're like, yeah, let's do it. We're already test driving some little snacky things. We're gonna get, we're gonna make some here. We're going's gonna be fine. We're going to also source some from other small business friends that we have. We have some big goods being delivered next week.

Peter Wang:

That's cool.

Christian:

That's cool.

Victoria:

Yeah. And we have ideas to go beyond that. I, we were talking about this menu being phase one. Like we have ideas to turn this into an actual little mini restaurant. Yeah.

Christian:

It will be eventually at one point and.

Victoria:

That's, those are the things we're talking about and thinking about now and discussing now. And aside from that, we wanna do events here, adoption events, holiday events. We wanna do, there's so many stuff that we can do now that now we're talking about. And that's we never had to talk about before.

Christian:

Yeah. And that's just the brewery too. That's not even Mm-Hmm. Big step was that we weren't able to manufacture a lot for our whole company life. But now we're in here, we're building up so we can start manufacturing. Picking up, you have the facility, right? The capacity we have the facility now and the capacity that we could start brewing now for a lot. The next step is wholesaling. I'm telling you right now, we're gonna take Riverside by, by storm here in a second with, uh, with Kombucha Wolf.

Victoria:

Wolf and I, I wanna annunciate on the, within a second.'cause we are taking it a little slow at this very moment. Slow for us. Slow. I don't know

Peter Wang:

what slow is for you guys.

Victoria:

We're slow for us. I know we say slow, but we're still exhausted. But. We're taking some time to enjoy it.

Christian:

Yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna ride out the brewery for a couple months'cause we are absolutely exhausted at getting to this point. As you can see, I look like a zombie. It is Halloween, so I'm just getting away. That's my zombie outfit today. Woof. Woof. But yeah, we work 120 hours a week minimum. This is,

Peter Wang:

I know, on a personal note, I've always told Christian, sleep more.

Christian:

Sleep and eat. Man, I love you as a brother, homie. Thank you for always saying that to me. That's when, see, it's like that. When people tell me, Christian, they actually care about me. They don't even ask about the company. They're like, you need to get some sleep. Yeah. Because I, I know thanks for actually looking at me as a person. Yeah, that's, that means a lot.

Peter Wang:

You're not just kombucha Chef.

Christian:

Thank you very much. And I appreciate that brother.

Peter Wang:

You're human being, even though Tag brought ramen here.

Christian:

Yes, dude. I'll never forget that time

Victoria:

you forced us to eat.

Christian:

I'll never forget that time. That was the best, best.

Peter Wang:

Didn't know this story.

Victoria:

Okay. Yeah. So. You told me Peter wanted to come by, wanted to hang out and, and I was like, he can come, but we're just working. So as long as he doesn't mind just watching his work. And Christian told you, told Peter, Hey, we're working. Maybe tonight's not the night. And Peter was like, oh, don't worry about it. I'll still come and I'll bring food too. What do you guys wanna eat? C two. Don't worry about it. We don't have time to eat. We don't eat sleep, we don't sleep. We don't, don't even eat to begin with. We're just gonna, we just have to work. That's it. And then what, an hour later you show up with Ramen, he shows up with, and literally then he sat Christian has set the table and for, and I literally in the middle of filtering, just stopped what I was doing and I sat down and ate ramen. Yeah,

Christian:

we didn't even really have a conversation too, right there. It was just like, I just sat there and I was like, this is so cool. Be we're having a meal. Beautiful soul. It was like, we're eating, we're sitting down and like, That was cool. Enjoying it. That was such a nice little, that was cool. Little break, man. That and I'll never forget that. Thank you so much. That's why, and there's gonna be many more. This community right here, right. 100% is a community. And this is all starting from just in the garage and it's absolutely insane.

Peter Wang:

Yeah, it's cool. So lots of new plans. That's one thing. I was pulling up a book. Naval is a founder of AngelList. He's mostly known for that, but he's also like a, AngelList is a platform where you can invest in startups. Naval has also become a very vocal, almost like a philosopher online, like a sto stoic kind of. He's written a really famous tweets about his philosophy, about money, working wealth, and so and so. He's someone I respect, not only because of what he does, but also his approach, and I was rereading one of his book, it's called The Almanac of Naval. It reminds of you guys because it says that the way to get our competition, some people say, I'll work everybody. There are a lot of YouTubers out there, so I will outwork anyone. I think that's a fool's errand to say I'll work anyone. Anyone has, we all have physical limits. We all have mental limits. It's not about just our working, but Naval says that it's about when you work, it's authentic. It's an extension of you. Only you can do it. That's becomes the advantage. That's how I get out of a competition.

Christian:

Oh, I love that

Victoria:

a hundred percent.

Peter Wang:

So in many ways this company wasn't just about,'cause I'm aiming for commercial success because I found this new recipe. Mm-Hmm. Every step is about, oh, what's the next natural step that aligns with us? The two of you. That's what it's cool.

Victoria:

And the au authentic. Yeah. It's an extension of our

Christian:

authentic and hopefully when people drink the Kompoocha they could seriously taste the amount of love in everything we put into it.'cause we work so hard.

Victoria:

I wouldn't even say, hopefully, I'm saying, I would say that's already been proven.

Christian:

That's literally what our customers said. And people embrace you. Well also for new customers, I hope. Yeah. Yeah. All that as well.

Peter Wang:

Yeah. And that's why I think the story is the center the product is just byproducts Yeah. Of the story and the next offering, whether it's the vegan Mm-Hmm. Ken, Ken. It could be the food you offer. It's all an extension of the same story. Mm-Hmm. The same way I'm approaching. The water brand is similarly. Yeah. There's not another water brand that's gonna feel like, and

Christian:

that's what I actually told you right in the beginning and the sale point of it all for wisdom man. And

Victoria:

that's exactly, yeah. And that it's going back to that quote is, you could say that there's no other water brand like it, but then you say, why? Because there's no other Peter. Yeah. And because the water brand is Peter.

Peter Wang:

It's extension of me.

Victoria:

That's the only way to truly prove if there's no other company like your company is if you make the company extension of yourself.

Peter Wang:

Yeah. That's also why I think a lot of times later on when the founder's not there, like the company loses way. Because the why disappeared. It becomes commercial. It becomes revenue first. Oh

Christian:

yeah. And you know what also with kombucha has grown to be like, I've gotten actually offers to sell like other companies and stuff. Brands. Yeah. People approached me and go, dude, you know how to do this. You got something special. Like, I love your energy. I love your confidence. Like, how about you come work for me south this Mm-Hmm. I can't. Because the big part of it is, what, what are you selling? They'll tell me. Heart's not in it. Yeah. I'm not in him. That's that. I'm not, that's nice money and everything, but it's, I can't, what makes it so easy for me and Kompoocha is I 100% believe in what we're doing. I believe in Victoria and got Bella on it. It's my best friend. So everything I do is just comes all natural.

Peter Wang:

That's beautiful. Now for all the viewers out there who are looking at you guys and say, okay, cool, you guys have done this now, I mean done this, but actually this is the beginning doing

Christian:

this, right? Yeah. You're doing something. Yeah. Doing it. Trying really hard.

Peter Wang:

You're trying, you're resilient. You've had many nos in your face. You have a lot of obstacles.

Christian:

I just turned 31, Victoria just turned 29, 31, and 29 started this one we were 27 and 25.

Peter Wang:

What do you wanna say to the viewers who are hesitant? Faced with a lot of challenges, confused about life.

Christian:

I went through struggles. I've always believed in myself. I was lucky enough to find Victoria. We stuck together. If you're trying to do stuff in your life, believe in yourself. Have confidence in yourself This is your life. Don't let other people dictate your life. Just truly believe in yourself and what you want do, and what you want your life to be like in the future. Keep that in goal and just work towards it Every day. Believe in yourself and be the best version of yourself. That's really it. Don't give up. Take your swing. You are gonna fail. You might fail really hard, and you might fail to a point where you think it's absolutely impossible to get back up. Promise. You just get back up and just keep trying. And level fi will find you. Everything will find you. And

Peter Wang:

keep going. Say Denzel wast in a quote. Yeah, just keep fall seven times, get up eight times.

Christian:

Yeah. Seriously. Uhhuh. Just be, keep, have confidence. Yeah.

Peter Wang:

Awesome.

Christian:

One. Huge thing. What I just wanna say about Victoria too, on her brewing skills, it's pretty hard. We're a non-alcoholic company that have to test under a 0.5%. And uh, if you keep letting it ferment, the alcohol content will go up. In my opinion, super easy to make alcoholic kombucha'cause it's just on longer fermentation. Victoria though has kept under us under a 0.5% without knowing anything about brewing and just learning how to brew. I've been by her side and learning and it's really cool. A huge accomplishment. Keeping it under non-alcoholic. People are showing up and kids are drinking at the bar with their parents looking like they're getting kombucha drunk, but it's all non-alcoholic saving their guts.

Peter Wang:

It's cool. And you guys like, you're like detail oriented. I feel like you're

Christian:

Victoria's. Sorry. Sorry for speaking there. Take over.

Victoria:

Yeah, no, yeah, for sure. I was a perfectionist. I've gotten better at it. But

Peter Wang:

problem. A Christian, a concept guy, right? Getting out there, opening doors. Yeah.

Christian:

The Victoria can walk through, keep those doors wide open for Yeah. Yeah. This is Victoria, come on here.

Victoria:

But to go back to your question that you asked earlier of what I would personally say to anybody watching. I've thought about this a lot. if I'm trying to talk like bigger picture, and not everybody may agree with this, but I feel like we all have some level as human beings have all some level of responsibility to, to do something to help the world, however small or however big that could be. It could be as small as, as rescuing a cat. That may be small and for the rest of your life you didn't feel like you did anything else to change the world, but to that cat, you changed their world. Or it could be something massive where you start this nonprofit and you save refugee children. It doesn't matter. I feel like we all have this responsibility to do something to leave the world a little bit better than when we came into it. If anybody is doubting how to pursue their life, what to do in their life to find that fulfillment, it's find what you feel like you can bring to the world and how you can make it better. And then give it 120%. As long as you are completely vulnerable, give it your all completely authentic, you will make the world a better place if you give yourself to that world.

Peter Wang:

Say, changing the world by giving yourself. Yeah.

Victoria:

If you wanna change the world, then give the world you

Peter Wang:

I love that point. Remember your purpose. Yeah. And you can, yeah. You should feel like you can change the world for the better.

Victoria:

Yeah. If you're trying to find your purpose, don't. Your purpose is you. Do what you love. Give it 120%. And don't doubt that as long as you stay on that path, you are gonna make the world a better place and you will be happy. And that's the only thing I can say. Speaking from experience So many times, and we can both attest to this, I've learned that we had no story. We had no idea what we wanted to do. We, we like, what do we have to do? We have to get, we have to make a plan. We have to make money. We have to like, and it's very easy to get caught up in that, especially right now when like money is survival.

Peter Wang:

Yep.

Victoria:

And like at this very moment. And, but if you can just set aside some time of the day to just do what you love and do it with all hundred and 20% of your authentic self, before you know it, it's gonna sprout into something so much bigger than that.

Peter Wang:

And having faith in that.

Victoria:

Oh God. Yeah.

Peter Wang:

I feel like Victoria, you found your purpose first. Yeah. And then Christian, you found

Christian:

yours through that. She, yeah. She, she taught me how, how special I am. My purpose is within myself. There's a lot of people that don't understand me.'cause I am 100% different from anyone else. Around Victoria's taught me to love myself, be confident in myself, and even some of my closest people to me, don't

Victoria:

appreciate his true self,

Christian:

how I have I approach everything. And,

Victoria:

but then in doing so, we come across all these other people that absolutely love your true self.

Christian:

They love how organic I am. And I would've never in a million years would've found that in myself if it wasn't for Victoria and this company. Just how I text you. I'm probably the only business owner. You text and I say, Hey homie, what's up? Throw you little ghost emojis. 100% emojis.

Peter Wang:

You do use a lot of emojis.

Christian:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because those are my emotions. I throw'em at you. And that's how I act. I don't act differently for anybody, I don't look at the gender or anything about that. Hey, my name's Christian. This is my company. Woof, woof Uhhuh. This is what it is.

Peter Wang:

And you roll with it.

Christian:

I roll with it. And people love how love it. And it's funny, I do know a lot of people that are Oh, ho, ho. Uh, but then when Christian comes around's, Hey Christian, what's up, man? What's up? What's up? Totally changing their personality. And they're smiling big and

Peter Wang:

Yeah. Yeah. Because they feel like they can let their guard down.

Christian:

Yeah. Yeah. And it's. It's Mm-Hmm. Because I

Victoria:

know we're being our authentic self. Yeah.

Christian:

So I'm, I'm, go ahead. Ahead and be yours. Also, I'm not, I don't lie, cheat or steal. You'll never find that for me, if you break one of those things with me, we're not friends and Yeah. And that's just how I live my life. And I've, I thank Victoria for that, for showing me all

Peter Wang:

That's cool. It reminds me of, there's a saying that people either are playing the status game or the wealth game, and when they like puff their chest Yeah. It's like a status. Yeah. Rise to this game and but to get out of the game is to not play. No. Yeah. Literally not play that game. Yeah. Yeah. We're not playing that game at all. I think that's where authenticity, when they feel you're authentic is that they know you're not trying to, you're not playing the status game. You're not trying to play a wealth game. Like I'm trying to make money for off you. I'm not trying to be comparing my status is comparison. Right. Mm-Hmm. It's a game of comparison, but if you just like, oh, okay. I can let myself go too, because that's cool. That's help.

Christian:

Thank you, man. It's been really cool and now I'm so grateful. My life is the most beautiful it's ever been because it's so cool. It's very surreal. It's really surreal.

Victoria:

Honestly doesn't make any sense. It really

Christian:

doesn't. It's

Peter Wang:

which Cheers to many more years. Keep going.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Peter Wang

Host