How I Built This with Guy Raz - Live Episode! Angie's BOOMCHICKAPOP: Angie & Dan Bastian

Episode Date: July 29, 2019

Angie and Dan Bastian weren't trying to disrupt an industry or build a massive company – they just wanted to put aside some money for their kids' college fund. In 2001, Dan stumbled across an internet ad touting kettle corn as a lucrative side-business, so he and Angie decided to take the plunge, investing $10,000 in equipment. At first, they popped kettle corn in front of local supermarkets in the Twin Cities and at Minnesota Vikings games. Eventually, they moved indoors to Trader Joe's, Target, and Costco – and got a crash course in how to run a business along the way. Angie's Kettle Corn eventually took on a bold new name: BOOMCHICKAPOP. And in 2017, the company was acquired for a reported $250 million. Recorded live in St. Paul, Minnesota. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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The powerful backing of American Express, don't do business without it. Terms apply, visit Americanexpress.com slash business. So really quick before we start the show, just want to tell you about a couple of how I built those live shows happening on the East Coast over the next couple of weeks. We're heading to New York City on September 10th, where I'll be interviewing Christina Tosi of Milk Bar at Town Hall. We're also doing a live show on September 12th in Washington, D.C.,

with Tristan Walker of Walker and Company. You can find out more about our live shows and get your tickets at nprpresents.org. And one more quick thing. There are still some tickets available to the How I Built This Summit, sponsored by American Express. That's happening in San Francisco, October 22nd, and 23rd at the Yerba Buena Center. It's going to be an incredible event with founders from companies like JetBlue, Instagram, Slack, Away, Jenny's splendid ice cream, spanks, and many, many more. You can find out lots more about the summit and also you can learn how to apply for the summit fellowship. The deadline is July 31st that gets you free admission to the summit.

So check it out at summit.npr.org and I hope to see you there. You went to a bunch of banks and what did they say? Were they eager to lend you the money? No. You went to bank after bank and they just said what? Some were more open to discussing than others. And, you know, we eventually found a partner that worked with us and lent us the money. And what did you have to, what kind of collateral did you have to, but you said he had no collateral.

You know, probably receivables and personal guarantees. Personal guarantees. Yeah. Which was our home. Yeah. Future earnings. Everything but the minivan. From NPR, it's how I built this.

A show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists. and the stories behind the movements they built. I'm Guy Raz, and on the show today, how Angie and Dan Bastion went from popping kettle corn in their freezing Minnesota driveway to building an international snack brand worth hundreds of millions of dollars. So there's a piece of career advice that I've always struggled with because it feels a little hollow.

And the advice is to follow your passion. Follow your passion and everything will fall into place. Except reality is somewhat different than that scenario. For starters, not everyone has an obvious passion. And then, not all passions are easily translated into sustainable careers. But if you've heard most of the founders on this show, you might conclude that all of them pursued their passions, like James Dyson trying to build a better vacuum cleaner, right?

Well, in fact, they are all passionate about what they created, but for the most part, the passion came after the product came into being. And in the case of Angie and Dan Bastion, neither Dan nor Angie ever had a particular love for popcorn. Yeah, they liked it, but it wasn't their passion, at least initially. The idea behind buying a kettle corn kit was pretty simple. They needed a way to earn extra money to save for their kids' college funds. And popping and selling kettle corn seemed like, a reasonable way to do it. So in 2001, after Dan literally saw an internet ad for kettle corn

equipment, he convinced Angie that they should go for it. They could launch it out of their garage in Mancato, Minnesota, and then, you know, sell the popcorn at Littleie Games or in parking lots. And that was how Angie's kettle corn was born. It would be the beginning of a grueling grind, the long hours, the freezing cold days, the crushing debt. and the stress on their marriage and finances. But 16 years after that kettle kit arrived, Angie's boom chika pop sold to a huge food conglomerate for a quarter of a billion dollars.

It is, like many of the stories in the show, seemingly improbable. Two people, with no business experience, no connections, no real passion for popcorn, still managed to build an incredible company. And a few weeks ago, Dan and Angie told me how they did it, in front of a live audience at the Ordway Concert Hall in St. Paul, Minnesota. Those are our rowdy friends. These are your people.

These are our people. You might know it would be one of those around. So, welcome. Thank you for being here. And, Joe, I want to start with you. And then we'll obviously get to when the two of you met. You grew up in Indiana. You grew up, I think mainly on a farm.

Yeah. In a Mennonite community. Can you tell us a little bit about your childhood and your upbringing? Sure. Well, my parents were very young. They were 18 and 19 when they were married. And 19 and 20 when I came along

and they lived in a trailer in the back of my grandparents' yard on the farm. And my parents met at Mennonite High School. And so growing up, you went to the Mennonite Church and you were really part of the Mennonite community? I was, culturally, religiously, socially, all men and I. And just for people who aren't familiar with, you know, with men and I culture, what does that mean? I mean, I obviously modesty, right? And so like,

did you, I don't know, watch TV and go to movies and do all those things as a kid? I got to go to a movie when I, my first movie was The Sound of Music. Yeah. Okay. All right. Little risky. And I'm married to Catholic. A little different upbringing. No, it was, it was very sequential. It was very protected. I was very loved and cared for and very simple. And I didn't know I was an oddball until I, you know, until I was 28. Yeah. And so you grew up in Goshen, Indiana. Yes. Dan, you grew up in Mancato, right? I mean, that's where you're from. So I grew up in Mancato, a third of four boys. It was kind of chaotic at times in our household, I'd say, fun in a good way, having loving parents.

I had an incredible experience growing up. Very competitive. All of us boys played sports, so a few heads were thrown through the wall. There's a picture over that hole. And were you, I mean, tell me a little bit about your school. Like, were you good student in school? I love school.

Yeah. I just... Are you going to ask me that question? No, I did. I loved school. And, but I grew up in an environment that didn't necessarily encourage me to go to college. And, you know, it wasn't until my Aunt Christine in Colorado Springs said to me when I was 19, like, why aren't you in college? And I was the first time anybody in my family said that they thought I had some potential, or I believed them to think that I had some potential.

Because you did not have any intention of doing that. Well, I didn't know what. I didn't know what. You know, I just said, oh my gosh, you know, you think I could go to college? And she said, of course, you should go to college. And I enrolled, well, I took a chemistry course that summer, just approved to myself that I could do it. And I got a B, so I was like, okay, I think I can do this. So I'm going to college.

And Dan, how about you? I mean, were you, would the school come easy to you? No. I mean, it was hard. I probably would have been diagnosed as ADHD. back in the day. You know, it was just harder for me. Fortunately, I had, you know, my mom was really great about keeping me, keeping her finger

on me to kind of get me through school. And I had two really smart older brothers that allowed me to get into a really great school, St. John's University. And you, when you went, I think you studied history in college. And was your, and then you finished, when you finished college, was your idea to be, become a teacher? Toward the end of my senior year, I think I did like a month long, a little internship in a classroom.

And so I just love the kids. I kind of realized it was my passion and I was really good at it. Yeah. And I could kind of manage the classroom how I wanted to rather than being told, you know, this is how you need to teach. And I think I really connected with the kids. All right. In an entirely separate universe, Angie, you went off to study nursing and you ended

up in in Santa Fe, right? Or in Gallup, in Gallup, New Mexico. How, and was that to begin your work as a, as a, as a, you were a psychiatric nurse? Yeah, I was in, I was working in Atlanta at Georgia Mental Health Institute and I was interested in transcultural health care. And so, um, I got a traveling nursing position, uh, which was in Gallup, New Mexico. And they had the contract for Indian health and with the Navajo tribe and the Zuni tribe for their inpatient psychiatric. care and I was like, I'm going there. I want to, I want to see what this is like. Wow. And you also, Dan, end up in Gallup, New Mexico teaching high school, right? Yep. I had a family, a relative that was working at the hospital in Gallup, New Mexico, and I ended up moving down to

Gallup, teach at the high school, and just so happened that Ange was working at the same hospital where my uncle was. So that's how we met. You met through your uncle, like, or he introduced you, or you just met at the hospital. We met in Roger's Kitchen. Uncle Roger's kitchen. Well, okay, my jaw was broken. I had broken my jaw. Wait, what? How'd you do that? There's a lot to this story here. So, I don't know. I was not eating well. I fainted in the elevator and fell on my face and broke my jaw. So I was wired shut and my friend Raymond, who was the social worker at the hospital, was a good friend of his uncles. And he said, let's go over and hang out at Rogers' house. So we went over to Rogers' house.

We hung out, and my jaw was wired shut. And Dan said immediately, oh, you broke your jaw. I broke my jaw in college. You broke your jaw, too? So when I was in college, I was playing baseball, I got hit by a line drive. And so Angie, I could relate to her. Like when I walked into the kitchen, her jaw was wired shut. And it's like, I know what she's going through.

She's blending food. she's like doing all that. Awful. So that was kind of our connecting. So you bond over this right away. Right away. Right away. There's an intense job broken job.

Jodd discussion. So there was a group of people that lived in Gallup that just would hang out together. You know, it's Gallup is a very difficult place. And a lot of people come in and work in the schools and the hospitals. And there was a group of us that were there doing that. And we would just go hang out and do happy hour every Friday night. And we kind of got to know each other that way. So you start hanging out.

Eventually, you guys become a couple. And I think within like two years of meeting, you got married, right? We got married. We had a destination wedding in Taos, New Mexico, where we just kind of had a small wedding, but had friends and family come and watch us get married. I think a year later, your daughter's born, 95, you guys moved to Santa Fe for a brief period. And then you eventually moved to Florida. You're a young couple and you've got a child and...

Two kids. Two kids. Your son is born. Your son's born in Sanofi. Why did you move to Florida? We just kind of said, hey, you know, maybe it's time to get a little closer to grandmas and grandpa. Your family was in... My family was in Sarasota.

Florida, yeah. So you move there. You start working for a clinic in Sarasota. A clinic. Yeah, coastal recovery center, which is a mental health clinic. And Dan, what did you do in Florida? So I stayed home with the kids, got to spend incredible time with them. And I also at the same time started the entrepreneurial process. And I started a...

Yeah, what do you mean by that? I mean, because you're the lead parent, right? You are at home and Angie's working outside of the home. Yeah, so one day a week I'd go work at this golf course. And Angie's mom would take care of Onica and Trip. What would you do at the golf course? I just slept bags and carts, and I was just a cart guy. Yeah.

Which I was good at, I guess. And he got free golf. And I got free golf. But I started this golf business where I'd set up tournaments for corporations. I didn't get real far with it, but I only had one or two tournaments, I think. But it was just kind of a good experience of, because Ange and I had started thinking about, you know, can we do something together? Is there an opportunity to do something together? And, you know, once this was winding down in Florida, we realized.

you know, this wasn't end. So we had some other ideas flowing through our heads. But you would basically kind of start to think about, hey, you know, what could a business be like? What could it look like? This, like, ideas started to kind of enter your mind? Yeah, I got a lot going through my mind, guys. So I don't know if I was really, like, focused on anything specifically other than, you know, Angie and I wanted to do something together.

We didn't really know what it was. We were thinking food at the time, not popcorn, but like food. restaurant, co-op, cafe type thing, where we could do it together and we could go after it. I think both Dan and I have this sort of restlessness about ourselves. And when one adventure doesn't work, we're on to the next adventure. Like, let's go back to Minnesota. Let's go to Minnesota. I love to Minnesota.

And you guys decide, let's go to Mancato. You wanted to be near your family? Yeah. And so we decided to move back to Mancato. I got back into teaching. Because when we moved back, we were thinking of, like I said, opening up like a cafe or some type of food place. And we just realized it was going to be too expensive.

We weren't prepared for it. So we got back into our careers. I got back into teaching and she got a job with the state hospital. All right. So you're back in Mancato. And what is this idea for kettle corn even? How did that even happen? Like you're going to your job.

You are a nurse. You're working at the clinic, right, and you're teaching. Can I just tell you that we were doing all of that, right? Like successfully employed, everything. And yet we said, oh, you know, we don't have any savings. Like, we got to figure out a way to put some money away for our kids' college fund. We have to figure out how to create something here so that we have money. Because we both just absolutely valued education.

And you had a six-year-old and a four-year-old or three-year-old. Three and five at the time. Three and five, right? So we are like, we haven't started yet. Everybody's already got a college fund and a 401, whatever that is, 409. We don't have the cash, right? We don't have anything. We don't have anything.

Let's do something together. And so Dan was like, okay, we'll figure something out. Yeah, so I'd be teaching during the day, and then I'd get home, and Ange would go into work at 5 o'clock to, like 1 o'clock. So at nighttime, when the kids were bad, I'd go online looking for different businesses. You would just search? Just search. Yeah.

And what did you, what did you come across? So, for businesses. Yeah. Like what were you, you would type things into Google? Like, this is early Google. Yeah, this is really,

early Google, you type in like, how can I make money from a side business? Like, what were you, what were you, what were your search parameters? You know, I don't know. But I somehow, I stumbled across a site

that said make thousands of dollars every weekend or day, popping kettle corn. Which is like a total scam. Right, right. How many scams actually seem like, like, make thousands of dollars selling kettle corn and you thought, Eureka? Eureka, he got Eureka. Well, $10,000 into it, we realized this is a potential scam, right? No, but I mean, I mean, you see this and you think, yeah, this is cool. And what did the site say? Like, it just, it had popcorn profit.

And it's so I just like I said, I call Angie call Angie up and it's probably like 11 o'clock at night. And I said, And she's at work. And she's at work. And I said, Angie, this is something we could do on the side.

I'm a teacher. We could do this on the weekends during the summers. You know, we could pop. With this $10,000, you'd get a kettle. It was $10,000 to invest in equipment. Yeah, something like that.

But I remember distinctly the phone call. I'm in the middle of maybe a takedown or something, like medication for a patient that's severe. And the phone call, your husband's on the line. So I run back to the nurse's station, and he's on the other end, and he says, Ange, what do you think about kettle corn? I'm like, I like kettle corn. I didn't even know what it was. Can I call you back?

Yeah, I mean. I didn't. I really, I mean, I don't, it was, I thought of it as popcorn. I knew it was kind of like sweet and salty. I don't know if I had ever tasted it, but it looked like a cool side adventure where we could make thousands of dollars every weekend. Of course. Of course. No brainer. So, so what did you do? Did you, did you order? Like, what did you order? We called them, and we bought it on a credit card like everyone else.

We bought it, we got a kettle, a tent. You know, if you go to a fair, one of those outdoor kettles, and all the equipment, a table, it probably wasn't worth. eight or 10,000, but it was already a packaged deal that they shipped to us. They shipped you, so it's a big kettle and you, and basically instructions on the proportions of sugar, salt, and oil. No, it didn't have that. No, it didn't have that. No. Oh my God. No, but it was this, to be fair, it was this couples out of Gig Harbor, Washington's, their own entrepreneur ship, sort of like they

were building these kettles and these packages to sell to kettle corn vendors. And they were making a business out of it. What does a kettle look like? Is it, yeah, it's a big, it's like, I don't know how many quartz is it? Like a Yeah, it's, if you go to fairs, you see 120,000. And that's what it was.

It was a hand stirring. Okay. And do you plug it into electricity? No, no, open flame. Propane. Open flame. Oh, gotcha. It was like 500 degrees. Right. Yeah. So do you remember like unpacking this stuff and like looking at each other and say, let's make kettle That's exactly what we did.

In fact, we... Oh my God. We did. I know this seems far-fetched, but it worked. It really worked. Wait, so you unpacked the so the stuff arrives. This is really like pre-

two-day delivery or instant Amazon delivery. It arrives. A semi-truck pulled up and couldn't go down our alley. Our alley was too small, so it pulled up on the street outside and we had to haul these things up the alley to our little garage that was in the alley. We were on the phone, that first batch or five batches, with the couple who had sold us the equipment

trying to figure out how this worked. So it was just, it was a little chaotic. We burnt the first two batches. And then after that, we had it down. And then we just, like, tweak the recipe. It was really good. It was great. And it's basically a kit.

So you could go and sell kettle corn. And just had curiosity, could you, I mean, at that point, Could you just set up a tent and sell it? Or did you need, like, a permit and all that stuff? No, no, we need it. We had to, I started, that was my job to do the research. Like, get us license, get the health department or whatever. And we, you know, we had to actually find a place that would let us pop and sell so that they could inspect us.

So what was the first place that agreed to let you set up a tent? Rainbow food. And in front of Rainbow Foods at a supermarket. Supermarket chain. But they let you set it up in the parking lot there? In front of the front door, and we decided to do it the night before Thanksgiving because we thought that the traffic would be good. Okay.

This is in 2001. 2001. So that's November 21st, 2001. This was my first winter in Minnesota, so I decided the date that we were going to do it, and Dan was like, well, okay, November 21st. Let's see what happens. And fortunately, it was a beautiful fall day, and it took us an hour to set up, and we sold $300.

Of popcorn. Let me just step back for a side. When you, Dan, I mean, your family is in Mancato, I guess your brothers, or maybe you were out of your parents. Like when you said, and they said, hey, what are you doing this week? And you're like, I'm going to sell kettle corn in front of this supermarket under a tent. Was anybody like, that's weird? A lot of people. Yeah.

I mean, I'm just kidding. We had experienced, we didn't get into this, but there were a couple kind of crazy ideas that we had experimented with before, like a network marketing gig. And so my family was probably like, here's, here's, Dan going again. Like here's another just hairbrained idea.

Yeah, and so, you know, for us, I think it was more about, you know, we're trying to just, we were spinning our wheels. We couldn't figure out what we wanted to do, and this was a way to get started. But $10,000, I have to imagine, investing that kind of money then was probably kind of a big deal. It's a big deal.

Well, zero percent credit cards. Yeah, but still, you've got to pay it back. Yeah, but we used another credit card to pay out that credit card. Right. There was a lot of credit cards going around at that time. And so you start selling the popcorn. The first time you set up a tent, you sell $300 to the popcorn, and are you bagging it in, like, Ziploc bags and just, no.

Twist tie. Twist tie bags. Okay. And you're just hand scooping it and selling it. And the popcorn, right, is like an amazing, like the difference in what you pay for the kernels and what you can sell the popcorn for, right? It's a nice margin. People told us no one would pay $3 or $5 for a bag of popcorn or kettle corn or whatever. But they did.

They did. Because it's really good. So $300, you come home. What's the next step? Let's do this again. Like, I mean, it felt, I don't know, it felt exhilarating a little bit, you know, that, like, we're in business now. Like, we're actually doing this. Yeah, but you were still teaching.

You were still doing your, what, would you see your students, like, on the weekends, or would you see, you know, folks from the hospital? Yes. And they would look at me like, what are you doing? Yeah. Right? I would have, like, when I was in the clinic in the afternoon, I saw patients. I was a nurse practitioner, so I was writing prescriptions and making referrals. And then I'd run home and I'd change into my kettle corn clothes

and go to the local baseball game with Dan or whatever, and we'd make kettle corn. And sometimes my clinic patients would be at the amateur baseball games and they would come up to the table and look confused. Yeah, because you were just writing a prescription, now you're selling them cattle corn. Yes, exactly. And my message was you can always be more than one thing in life.

You can. You can. All right. So you've got a license. You got a tent. You got a kettle. And what were you calling the company at that point? Kettlecorn Cafe. Kettlecord. Okay. Got it. So 2002, you take the winter off because you can't really sell it outside. Well, we did pop in January in the snow because there was a girls basketball tournament at Minnesota State University and they didn't have any concessions. And so we said here's our opportunity. And you have to do it outdoors, right? Because of the propane. So we put the tent outside the garage. and it was snowing and we just put the sides up and we'd pop it outside and deliver it over to the college. All right.

I think it was that summer of 2002 where you basically started to sell kettle corn at the Minnesota Vikings training camp, right? So how did that happen? Did you just like go there and set up, you asked them, I'm assuming, if you could go and set up a tent? No, no, we didn't ask. No, no, we asked, we asked. We're Midwesterners. And when you asked, would they say, yeah, you have to pay us a certain amount of money if you want to set up outside here?

Yeah, I mean, so with the Vikings, I had a former college classmate of mine that was an assistant athletic director at the college at Minnesota State University. And he opened the door for us to set up our tent at the training camp. And I think there may have been a fee year commission on that. But we thought, I mean, that was a huge opportunity for us to make some extra money. And fans are going there to see the players train. Correct. So you start selling popcorn there. And I guess one of you has this idea.

Let's send the players a team popcorn. Yeah, right. Like, let's leverage this opportunity. Because Dan, like most Minnesotans are huge Minnesota Vikings fans. Yeah. But I didn't understand it yet because I had just moved here. But he was like Minnesota Vikings, everything all about it. And, you know, it was at the time of Randy Moss and Dante Colpepper and, you know, that it like all that, that era.

And he was just like, wouldn't it be fun if the players ate our kettle corn? And we were like, well, let's figure it out. Let's figure out how to make this happen. So what did you do? You just made tons of bags of kettle corn. We made a few phone calls just to see if we could give it to them. Yeah. And we waited.

and we waited. Nobody called back. No, we got a phone call back, and they said, so we hear that you have some kettle corn that you want to give the players. We'll take it as long as it's free. So we were like, okay, we'll give it to them for free. So we popped 120 bags and sent it over to them.

And you didn't even know if the players ever saw it. It was just in the locker room. Right. So they came, the sales marketing team came over and more or less offered us a contract on the spot. Wait, because the players loved it so much? Yeah, and I think the sales, people at the Vikings saw it as an opportunity to bring in another company to another sponsor. Because it wasn't like free to pop kettle corn for the Vikings.

There was a fee involved in. And we didn't really understand that until we got really excited. And then all of a sudden. So they came to you and they said, hey, we have a great opportunity for it. You can be the official kettle corn of the Minnesota Vikings. but it's going to cost you a sponsorship fee. $8,000. $8,000 to be the official.

And what did that mean? It wasn't official either. They said preferred. It costs more for the word official. It costs more for official. Oh, wow. But we said we're going to be official. All right.

So you are starting to sell in front. And so this is like football. season, you're going there every weekend to in front of the stadium, tailgators, not inside the stadium, right? Just in front. And were you, I mean, were you selling a lot of cattle were you doing well? Yeah, we were selling, I mean, every Sunday we'd get up at like 5 a.m., pack the trailer and take our equipment up, and we'd be up and ready to go by 9 a.m. They had a party on the plaza on Kirby Puckett Drive in front of the Metro Dome, and there'd be a band It doesn't matter if there was a blizzard or if it was 10 degrees or zero degrees, the party was still on, and we popped kettle corn.

And it was just the two of you. No, we had friends come and help us. Volunteer friends. A lot of them are in this audience right now. And I have to assume, I mean, your costs weren't that high, right? It's salt, sugar, some oil, and corn, right? Yes. Corn kernels.

Yes. So you were probably making some money, but not too much money, like a little bit of money? Or were you, actually, was it, were you starting to be able to save for this college fund? Not really. It all went back in the business. We bought a trailer. We bought more equipment. We bought, I don't know, a heater for the, you know, I don't.

It was just everything seemed to go back into the business. So was this kind of a turning point where you started to get attention? because I think within a year or so, a local supermarket chain in Minnesota approached you and said, hey, do you guys want to sell your popcorn here in our stores? Is that how it happened? Well, yeah, so we started, after a couple years of being this outdoor event company, we started realizing, like, this is not something we want to do for the rest of our lives.

I mean, it was an opportunity to reach people, but we thought, you know, is there another way to get our kettle corn into people's hands, our mouths? And it was cold. Right, it was cold. Exactly. And so when we started in 2003, two years into it, I quit teaching and I started focusing on the business. And was continuing to work full-time supporting the family as well as helping in the business. And we met with a local grocery chain Lunds and Byerleys. and they said more or less, get your act together and come back and talk to us.

Get nutritional panel, get packaging, you know, twist ties don't work in grocery stores. You were hand-packing. And you can't make it in your garage. You were hand-packing the popcorn with twist ties and cellophane bags. So what did you do? How did you start that process? Well, we just said, we'll get our act together and will you see us again. And it took us six months.

We found a small kitchen. We bought some equipment. We moved the operation indoors and got that kitchen licensed. And we came back in six months and launched. And what did your packaging look like at that point? It was like a clear cello bag with a label that we would paste on top.

Like manually by hand? The kids would do it. Your kids would do it. Wow. So you were still doing this by hand and you were sealing the bags? So Anika Tripp, and Ange and I and whoever else we could find would do these labels every night.

You'd slap on the, and what was it called at that point? Well, we called it Anci's because somebody said, you got to name your product because it can't be Cattlecorn Cafe, right? So we didn't know what popcorn was called, really. So we went to the grocery store and we looked online. And what we saw at the time was in the grocery store. It was Orville. It was Vicks.

It was Cracker Jack, Poppycock, Dale and Thomas, Harry and David. And I just turned to Dan and I said, where are the popcorn women? When we come back, how Angie's kettle corn eventually managed to get into Trader Joe's, even though it almost didn't. And how it eventually spread just about everywhere. I'm Guy Raz. Stay with us. You're listening to How I Built This from NPR. Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz.

So it's the early 2000s, and Dan and Angie have started to get their popcorn into a few local grocery stores in the Twin Cities. They are still doing most of the popping and bagging and delivering and barely making enough money to hire anyone. But then they find two people who seem to be willing to help out. Well, we hired, Donna Jeannie were retired third grade teachers and they helped us out. They were married. They retired. they just wanted to do something together. And they said, we don't care what you pay us.

And so we said, well, we could pay you $8 an hour for both of you. Said, sure. And they were amazing. They would do demos for us in one store while we would be in another store. And, you know, over time we were able to pay them more. But they said yes, because they were kind people and they wanted to help us. I mean, at this point, you know, 2004, 2005, I mean, I mean, how are you financing this just through the sale of popcorn?

I don't know. I'm not sure. I mean, yeah, we were probably going further and further in debt, to be honest with you. Because you had to buy equipment. You had to buy bags. I mean, it was just a continual drag. Totally chaotic. Right.

Totally chaotic. And just doing, doing, doing. I mean, we used a lot of credit cards. We funneled all the money back in. there was a time when I think we had enough credit card debt that a family friend came to us and helped us. He was an accountant. He looked at our books and just said, you know, why don't I just give you a loan here? And we can relieve your credit card debt and you can pay me back. But I don't want to see you going on vacations and spending money at the golf club.

I mean, that's fine. You're like, okay. I mean, that's that's the question right. You started this out to create college funds for your kids. And it's, sounds like for the first seven years, you just buried yourself further and further into debt. Like, they weren't going to college. They were never going to go to college on this plan, right? Right. And the other thing is, we have a misunderstanding that when you have your own business, you, you know, you own your time. Yeah. That the opposite is true. The business owns your time. Like, we were like, how did we go so wrong here? I mean, like, was there ever a point in that in the first five or six?

years where you're thinking, what are we doing? I mean, we're in debt. We're working like all the time. It was hard. I mean, it was really, I mean, I think early on, you know, it just just takes over your life. Did you guys fight? All the time. Yes. We did. We fought a lot. Yeah, and maybe that helped us. We're not, we're not ones to spare words with each other. Yeah. But, I mean, how did, Angie, how did you compartmentalize? Like, you're dealing with patients who have serious mental issues, and then you're like... Where's he going with this? I was one of those patients' guy.

And then you are pivoting to kettle corn. Well, okay. Wait, at the end of the day, I mean, even though all of that stress was there, we're both pretty tolerant of each other. we were committed to each other, and both of us are pretty kind people. So we gave each other some latitude in the whole situation, and we just, you know, I think we both just said, we'll be fine. Like, we'll get through this. We'll be fine. It was really hard to refocus and to realize that, you know,

we got to keep moving forward here because we're, you know, knee-deep into this, and we have to find a way to continue to grow it. Not really understanding where it was going or what the outcome, future outcome was going to be still. All right. I think it was around 2008. You had to get a loan to get a much bigger space. Think like a million dollar loan. And you went to a bunch of banks,

and what did they say? Were they eager to lend you the money? No. They were not eager. Even though you had, clearly you had revenue coming in and... Yeah, but we had debt. We didn't really have any collateral. And, I mean, looking back now, I can kind of understand banks' position at that time where we were.

And it was just, it was a long journey. It was really hard. You went to bank after bank and they just said what? Yeah, and we had communication with some, you know, a variety of banks and some were more open to discussing than others. It was just, I think ultimately, we just weren't strong enough, in a strong enough position for them to lend us a lot of money. We needed a lot of money. You needed money for a bigger facility to ramp up production. Because we had just at this point decided to move into a bigger facility at 25,000 square.

How many people were working for you at that point? Probably at that time, 2006-7, maybe 20-ish or something. All full-time or mixture of part-time? A mixture of both. Yeah. But, you know, we eventually found a partner that worked with us in a bank and lent us the money. They gave you the money. Yeah, it gave us the money and gave us a line of credit.

And what did you have to, what kind of collateral did you have to buy me? You said you had no collateral. You know, probably receivables and personal guarantees. Personal guarantees. Which was our home. Yeah. Future earnings. Yeah.

Um, everything but the minivan. Because, you know, your kids are getting older and you guys are in your 40s at this point. And, you know, for a lot of people, that's kind of a turning point too. You start to think about, okay, in college and all these things. And was any part of you nervous about that? I don't, I don't think you, when you make that decision, like, if you start going down that path, you're going to crack. because the bottom line was people loved our product. We just had to figure out how to make it better, more efficiently,

and how to get it into more stores. But did boo-b? I mean, I imagine there was probably a little bit of frustration, right? Because people would probably come up to you and say, oh, you guys are Angie's. I love your kettle corn. It's awesome. You guys are crushing it or so it's so great.

And meantime, you're struggling financially. Right. Well, can I just say, like, when you don't have any real money to start out with and all you have is ambition and potential and skills. You count on those things, you know, to make your way through, you know. And so we never really had any money, and we did all kinds of amazing things in our lives, you know. So if this whole thing went south, we'd owe a lot of people a lot of money, but it wouldn't stop us from living our life.

Did you feel the same way, Dan? Yeah, I'm pretty, I have a pretty high tolerance for risk and debt. I mean, it was about, you know, if we had money, let's put it back in, let's grow, grow, grow, grow. And that wasn't the scariest part. The scariest part came the next spring of 2008. This is Trader Joe's, when Trader Joe's approached you. So we had, we were just very persistent with traders, and we ended up getting. How did you even get to Trader Joe's?

A lot of phone calls and a lot of product being sent to the buyer. It was, you know, I think finally the buyer got sick of me and, like, said, I finally got a hold of her. She was in her office. Marcy was her name and she, like, said, all right, what do you got here? I've tried popcorn before. It's not going to work. And I said, you haven't tried ours. You know, it's that line that all of us uses that we have the best product. Anyway, she, she liked it. She said, already. Did you send it to her? Did you go out there? No, I sent it to her. Right. And so we, she agreed, to bring us on. What was the order that she put in? She put in an order for 25 trucks. What does that mean? How many bags of popcorn is that? That was, uh, what, four or five hundred thousand dollars worth? It was crazy. And that would go all across the country and every Trader Joe's? Yes. So she, and this is a one-time deal? Well, we didn't know. She was going to try it. And we obviously, we had some problems with some clumping, that first order. And she immediately called and said, fix it or were kind of done. Right. And, and, But at the same time, the scariest part was our line of credit for $150,000 had run out,

and we didn't have any money to buy some. And they're not going to pay you for 30 or 60 days. It wasn't going to be paid until later in June or July or something of 2008. And you had to deliver it. But we had to buy the supplies. Buy it, I see. We didn't have enough money to buy the raw materials. And we didn't have the sugar and corn and salt.

So that was a terrifying. It was like we were this close. How much did you need? Well, there was a credit card that came through the mail, just another credit card. And it said, call for $100,000. And I got on the phone one night and said, can we get this $100,000 wired to us? And our credit was good.

And so they wired us $100,000. At like a high percentage? Probably. And so that allowed us to get to... Was that check thing? Was it? Yeah. Oh, like when they send you a check,

that says, sign this, you get $100,000. I don't remember. But it was in our bank account quickly. Yeah, it was. I'm going to start paying attention to those checks in the mail. I didn't realize it was a real. Okay. So once we had that, we could pay our staff, we could buy supplies, and we could, it would

tie us over until we got paid by traders. And then traders came back with another order of like 25 trucks, because it was going bonkers. And then that, that's when we turned the corner. How did you actually physically make all that popcorn? How many, I mean, did you just have to hire tons of temporary people or permanent people? Like, how did that, how did you do that? Because you're still working in the hospital at this point.

Yeah, yeah. Well, clinics and hospitals. I will say that we were fortunate to look to hire people during 2007 and 2008 when the economy was sort of in the tank. And so there were a lot of people looking for work. And you guys were not that affected by the economic downturn? And this was Dan's sort of strategy. It's when things are going south, he's going north. You know, so.

You know, I think we just knew that there was opportunity out there because a lot of big companies were pulling back during the recession. And we were getting vibes from stores and from warehouse, Costco and others, that, hey, there's an opportunity here if you're willing to invest because others are not. And so we went for it at that time and kind of said, we'll do this, this.

And we kind of said yes to everything. And because of that, we had to hire a lot of people quickly to work in our plant so we could manufacture enough to ship out. So you are starting to sell that. I mean, really, this is selling well at Trader Joe's. Do you remember what your revenue was in 2009? Maybe $3, $4 million. So pretty great.

I mean, you could start to see some momentum. We started to realize there was a chance here. But, Angie, you stayed on until 2010, working as a nurse. What was a turning point for you where you thought, okay, now I'm going to be in this, you know, full time, I'm going to stop, you know. Well, I had left the state because there was very little flexibility at the state hospital. So I had left the state and started my own contracting business so that I could call it. contract my time and have my own flexibility and say, this is when I can work and I can't work.

Because you were still basically supporting your family, right? Yes. You were not taking income from the company quite yet. Yes. We had a mortgage, too. So we were doing pretty well in that regard. But I started weaning my time back because Dan would call me and he would say, okay, we have a Costco meeting on May 12th or whatever.

Can you move your clinic around and go to Costco? Sure. And when you did those meetings, like when you went to Costco, how did you pitch them? Dan, would you have Angie kind of be the face of the product and make the pitch? Or did you make the pitch? Or did you guys kind of bounce off each other like you're doing now? Well, initially, I did all the sales calls early on. And then by the time we got to 2008, 9, 10, especially after that when Ange came on full time, they wanted to see her. I mean, her name was on the package. And she told the story really well. So I kind of took, you know, instead of just instead of doing ops and sales and everything, I kind of stayed focused on kind of the operational side, working with Greg, my brother, and kind of managing the team.

And Ann started focusing more on working with the sales side. You guys get an outside investment firm, Sherbrook Capital, it's a VC firm, come in, make an offer, Did you feel at that time you needed to have that capital to grow in the way that you, you know, that you wanted to? Honestly, we didn't know what they wanted. We didn't really understand private equity. We didn't know, I mean, I wasn't a business person. I didn't know exactly how it worked, you know, and Angeon.

And so it was more my brother, Greg, who started taking some interest in that. And he's the one who initiated the dialogue with Sherbrook after they contact. us or him. Well, and he said, like to us, he goes, you know, we don't need the money now, but if we're going to continue to grow, we're going to need money sometime. And we understood that because we had just been through years of like, oh, God, we need money, right? So even though we don't need it now, it made complete sense to us.

And now we were in a position where we didn't need it, and that's the time to go ask for it. So, okay. But that money obviously helped because at that point, at that point, you decide to begin a rebrand and to introduce, to move beyond just kettle corn. Right. Well, and they, okay, so a couple things that when they, when we decided, when we understood what private equity was about, like I had only ever seen private equity in movies, and they

were deconstructing businesses, and they were the bad guys, right? But, you know, we, these, this private equity was a small shop, and they were, had built brands, and they were interested in partnering, and we said, we wanted to. our people's success to be, you know, success along with us. Can you help us figure out what to do? And they helped us set up an employee equity pool. They helped us set up a board. They helped us set up a professional sales team and build a marketing team. So it was a whole new, entirely new level. And it felt like, like we understood partnership because Dan and I were in partnership, you know, this whole way. And so now we just had another partner. You know, we had, we were now,

our business was marrying their business. And so what was the impetus to, you know, because your kettle corn is your bread and butter, right? What is the impetus at that point to go to, you know, salted popcorn or buttered popcorn or other flavors? Was it, was it them? Was it other people saying, hey, you know, we want different flavors? Well, in 2011, we were in the natural and organic snack section, right? So, and that's where we live. And you're in Costco. We're in Costco. We're in Costa. You're at Target at this point?

Yes, we're in Target. And in a lot of regional grocery chains, doing very well in the natural and organic section. But to me, when I looked at it on the shelf, it looked very masculine. You were talking about other natural and organic parts. All of it. You go to the groceries.

I used to walk the stores and just stare. You know, stare at the salty snack. And the natural and organic snacks that were aimed at women, I thought, looked like they assumed we were all. on a diet. Right. And so I was like, okay, like we can do that, but we don't have to do it in that way. Right.

So let's do that, along with our kettle corn, let's do more. So we built out an innovation sort of product innovation map and started looking at innovation as more than just the product, but in the messaging and branding. And did you, I mean, this also coincides with like the gluten-free explosion, right, which we are still, did that, did you also, were you also able to kind of ride that wave? We absolutely did. We would have mothers calling us saying, is your product certified gluten-free? And this was early on. Dan's cell phone was on every single package because that was our business. Oh, really?

That was our business number. And so his cell phone would ring and it would be some mom standing in front of a Costco pallet saying, is this allergen-free? Well, the reason I did it, I did it early on before we were very big, and I wanted all complaints to come to me. And it just, we never ended up taking it off until, until 2011, until this private equity said, it's time to get your phone number off of that. But, yes, so we said yes, that we heard all these mothers calling us, yet we got to get certified gluten-free, so we did. 2011 you decide to find somebody to help you with a new name you go to a branding agency we go yes and what and what what names do they come up with four really boring ones and one that I thought we thought was interesting what was it it was called boom chica pow-pow

good name well we laughed right like everybody laughed boom chika-pow-pow what and this the brief was like hey, we don't want to be diet. We want to elicit curiosity. We want to be something different. We want to be celebratory and come from a position of empowerment. Right. So this is going to be Angie's boom chica pow-pow-pow. And we were, this is the days that we were all at one table together and we had a business analyst at the end of the table eavesdropping on the presentation. And after the creative agency left, he said, you know, boom chika-pau-pow is 70. porn. That would not go down will in the

Mennonite Church. No. No. It would not. And we said, and how do you know? So we said, okay, but there was energy.

You know, there was energy. And it struck the right tone. And we just told them, go back and fix it. They came back. Boom, chica pop. We launched it in May of 2012.

How did your customer base respond to the new name? Well, we had buyers that said, oh, it's just awful. You know, it's, don't do that. It's confusion, brand confusion, right? Yes, right. And we don't really like it. They don't really get it.

We had people internally that said, don't do this. You know, and, you know, there were two of us women on the leadership. Mary Hanarhan was our marketing director and myself, and we fought, like, yes, we want this because it is we are not going to do angies nearly naked. We're not going to do angie skinny. We're not going to do Angie's, whatever that is. We want to own something else. It's going to be fun. It's going to be creative. It's going to be dimensional. It's going to celebrate the feminine. And, you know, for years, women have bought, you know, chips and everything that, you know, are marketed to men. And we don't think a thing about it. And so why not?

put a package out there that appeals to women. And it was that first non-GMO branded popcorn on the market. And it became our number one selling skew in four months. The yellow bag. The yellow bags. After nine years of business. Wow. So I think around 2014, TPG growth comes in a bigger private equity firm.

They buy out Sherbrooke. Sherbrooke. Yeah. and take a pretty big stake in the company, and it's real money. And I think at that point, you guys started to distribute money to people who had been with you and worked with you for a long time. Yeah, those granted equity shares became liquid for our staff. Best three days of my career.

People probably was transformational, right? Yeah. I think so. Yeah. Do you remember how much money you were able to distribute? Millions.

Millions of dollars, wow. And I mean, that can't probably doesn't happen very often in Mancato, right? Like a liquidity event. I'm not, I mean, right? No, it's true. It doesn't.

It doesn't. It doesn't. It was an emotional time. I mean, it was, you know, for everyone that had given, you know, everything to us in the company.

And, I mean, it's still emotional. thinking about it, but it was kind of a thank you to everybody. And then we got to do it again. And 2017. Yeah, when we sold. So 2017, ConAgra, a huge company that owns many brands, buys out your company, reportedly for a quarter of a billion dollars. Astounding, quarter of a billion dollars.

For popcorn. For popcorn. And the brand. And the brand. And the brand. And the brand. I mean, talk about a great $8,000, $10,000 investment for a fly-by-night kettle corn kettle. Man, now we're all thinking, whew, I wish I saw that ad on Google with a popcorn popping in 2001.

So they buy it out. And, I mean, what, did you even have time to absorb what that meant? I mean, were you just, I don't know. You know, the last three years from 14 to 17, when TPG came on, we sold a pretty big share of our ownership to TPG. I mean, I think if we had to jump out in 14, it would have been really hard. But we had three years run where we were able to kind of slowly step back and participate as much as we wanted to and as much as the staff needed us. And so I think when 17 came, it was the 14th sale was much more emotional in the sense because it was like, oh my God, we did it. Yeah.

Yeah. And that whole thing about like, hey, we started this to put our kids through college and have enough money. Yeah. Now we're doing that for all these other people. I mean, I mean, you also, I know you are a brand ambassador and you are on contract with. with Conagra. And Dan, are you involved with the company at all? I'm not. Not at all. First of all, I mean, the fact that you came into such a substantial amount of money, has that substantially changed your lives? Has it, and so how?

Yeah, I mean... I know we're in Minnesota. No one likes to talk about money. I think, yeah, I mean, you know, we just, we got into... this later in life. And so, I mean, I'm still wearing these jeans that I've had for 10 years. Yeah. Those are nice dad jeans. Yeah.

I noticed those. I noticed those jeans. They're, yeah. So, but yeah, it's allowed us. It's given us an opportunity to do things that never would have had the opportunity to do. I mean, could you have imagined when you ordered that kettle? and it arrived in your garage and you were like mixing it and burning the corn, the popcorn, like that you would go on, it would go on to be purchased for a quarter of a billion dollars,

like 16 years later? Could you have imagined that? No, no, no, never. I mean, not even, not even probably halfway through or three quarters of the way through, did we think about it in that way? I mean, it was just for us looking at the next horizon and the next thing that we needed to do and the next right thing that we needed to do. I think more, Angie and I were just talking about this, I think more contemporary entrepreneurs

probably are thinking that way. I mean, we started in 2001. I think for us, it was just kind of not on the radar, and it wasn't like everyone was starting up food companies or, you know, different businesses, as much as it is today. For us, it just kind of grew,

we grew into it and grew into the good fortune of it happening. I have done interviews with co-founders who were married before and are still married. In some cases, Melissa and Doug are still married. But then there have been examples. We had an episode recently, EO products. They divorced. They kept the company going. You guys had a marriage, you had a family, you had a partnership, a lot of stress.

I mean, just being married and having kids. anyone who experiences that, they're stress, right? You argue, and that's normal. But running a business together on top of that and a business that for years and years is a grind and just you don't really know if it's working and the people calling you and there's stress, how do you, how did it survive? Go ahead. You know, at the end of the day, it's about love, right?

You decide, do you love this person? Yes. Are you willing to commit to this person no matter what? Yes, you know. And I think for Dan and I, we both had that sort of frame of mind. And, you know, it doesn't make it easier. But I think that, you know, both he and I have this mindset that we're going to make something work. You know, by God, if anybody can make it work, we'll make it work.

and, you know, I think it just took, with the business and with our marriage, just recommitment all the time, you know, every day, every week, whatever it meant. And still is. Yeah. I mean, still is. Do you think, Dan, first of you, do you think that what you achieved in this business was the result of your work and your skill and your intelligence, or do you think that Luck played a big part? I knew this question was coming. I love it. You know, guy, I think there's a ton of good fortune that has come our way.

People have been so embracing and helpful in so many ways. So many people, this crowd is the reason we're up here. But we put a lot of energy into creating an environment that was about giving to the consumer, giving to the customer. I think there's some skill in that. I was blessed with the ability to interact with people and build rapport pretty quickly, and I knew the importance of that. And Ange had so many other gifts, the marketing side, the creative side, the initial finance side,

that we were able to understand our talents and pull it together. And, you know, no doubt there was good fortune to luck that comes your way at the right time things happen. A credit card mailing comes in. I mean, it's, there is. There's luck involved in this. And we were just fortunate at the right time. We made some good decisions and rebound it well from some bad decisions. Angie?

Boy, you know, I've seen a lot of really good people work just as hard as us or harder and not experience the same good fortune that we've had. And so I think it does take, I mean, we made a conscious effort to create goodwill and positivity. and when you do that, I believe that that comes back to you, but you can't do it without hard work. Angie and Dan Bastion. Co-founders of Boom Chick-a-Pop. I spoke to Angie and Dan Bastion at the Ordway Concert Hall in St. Paul, Minnesota.

And by the way, that original kettle they bought in 2001, Angie and Dan no longer own it. When ConAgra bought the company in 2017, they also acquired that old kettle. And Angie believes it is now sitting in the back of a very large storage facility somewhere in Minnesota. Hey, thanks so much for listening to this episode of How I Built This. Our show is produced this week by Rachel Falkner with music composed by Rumtin Arablui. Thanks also to our live events team, Alit Prescott, Rachel McGrath, John Isabella, and Andy Huther. Thanks also to Julia Carney, Neva Grant, Jeff Rogers, and Sanaz-Meshkampur.

Our intern is David Jha. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening. to how I built this at PR.