Onwards

Today is a historical day.

Four years ago, we saw how disappointed our team was (most of them, we assume) about the results of the election, so we tried to be the thermostat, not thermometer as we’re known for being radically candid with our team. Revisiting our words from four years shows how little progress we’ve made as a culture. But we press on. As leaders, we are acutely aware that the macroclimate can affect the microclimate (e.g. company culture, vibe, tone). It is why hurt people hurt people but also how leaders can build leaders.

Now, we have a lot of work to do (for everyone), so we’ll keep it short. If you’re curious, this is what we wrote to our team on Monday.

The Boba Guys

—

Hi Team,

We want to provide a few words to our team today given the upcoming inauguration and social climate.

You've seen it in our orientations, The Boba Book, and social media posts that the biggest cultural divide that we face as a country is East vs. West (philosophy), Individualism vs. Collectivism. We've talked about this for nine years straight. Now, we think it's time to tell you where we got it from...

"The emergency we now face is economic, and it is a desperate and worsening situation. For the 35 million poor people in America—not even to mention, just yet, the poor in other nations—there is a kind of strangulation in the air. In our society it is murder, psychologically, to deprive a man of a job or an income. You are in substance saying to that man that he has no right to exist. You are in a real way depriving him of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, denying in his case the very creed of his society. Now, millions of people are being strangled in that way. The problem is international in scope. And it is getting worse, as the gap between the poor and the “affluent society” increases…

In a world facing the revolt of ragged and hungry masses of God’s children; in a world torn between the tensions of East and West, white and colored, individualists and collectivists; in a world whose cultural and spiritual power lags so far behind her technological capabilities that we live each day on the verge of nuclear co-annihilation; in this world, nonviolence is no longer an option for intellectual analysis, it is an imperative for action."

“The good and just society is neither the thesis of capitalism nor the antithesis of communism, but a socially conscious democracy which reconciles the truths of individualism and collectivism.”

I came across these quotes nearly two decades ago in a collection of speeches dubbed "The Trumpet of Conscience'' (1967). It is actually one of MLK's last set of talks before he passed in 1968. This is part of his deeper level of work-- it won't show up on your socials today. Most people do not know that MLK is one of the first leaders in modern America to have analyzed and connected the strands of Individualism and Collectivism.

Both MLK (and even Malcolm) used Asia as a major talking part about economic and political movements. Many of the civil rights leaders were watching the wars in China, Korea, and SE Asia and wondering what it meant for the American movements. As a leader in the AAPI community, I have the utmost respect for anyone who sees global culture and history.

Whether it be our support for UBI (Universal Basic Income), commentary on race and class, or our generation's biggest cultural divide (Collectivism vs. Individualism), it does all come back to Dr. King. We admire him so much you can literally now see that we built an ecosystem around his work. We don't always get it right, but we hope some of his teachings are evident in the way we run a boba shop.

Today is about him and his legacy. The work isn't done, but we've learned that sometimes to move forward, you have to look backward (in the past) and connect the dots. We are here to build a more inclusive and just society. We just hope that people don't forget the blueprint for that had always been reconciling "the truths of Individualism and Collectivism."

Now you see why we love layers. ;)

Onwards,

Andrew & Bin

Great Balls on Fire

Hi Boba Guys and Gals,
A big update for you all. First, we made a COVID-19 page for all the latest updates about what we are doing to evolve our business model during this crisis. We’ve been pretty good at keeping it current, so please refer to that page as the single point of truth.

Since our big blog post on March 15th, we’ve been releasing bits and pieces of our Boba Guys Express model on our Instagram. However, we want to get ahead of everything like we usually do and share with the pubic what to expect next.

Boba Guys Express
As of today, we opened two stores with the new Boba Guys Express business model: The Burrow (Brisbane) and our Hayes Valley (San Francisco) store. We had some hiccups along the way like bringing our POS to its knees, but we seem to have figured out how to throttling demand and improve efficiency. As we’ve said this whole time, public health is our top priority. If we see unmanageable crowds again, we will shut down the store. Last week, we anounced that we even turned off DoorDash for a store because the demand created a public health hazard.

Rollout of Future Stores with Boba Guys Express
It seems as the peak is behind us in SF/LA/NY, but we must stay viligant in keeping the curve flattened. The shelter-in-place rules will stay in effect at least through May, so the best model to sustain our business and keep the public safe is our Boba Guys Express model. That means the limited menus, no customization, and contactless systems you see now will remain indefinitely.

At this point, we feel confident that the Boba Guys Express model can scale, which brings us to the big topic…

#ReversingTheSnap (Bringing Back our Team)

As we’ve said in our initial post, the moment we went into hibernation, the remaining four of us (me, Bin, COO Katie, and chief-of-staff Jesse) had one mission: reverse the snap and bring everyone back. We made the tough call to close early for public health reasons— we simply couldn’t pivot our model quick enough to address growing health concerns from the public and team members (and their parents). We now know it was the right decision as the new model is working and we’re actually hiring again…

Our focus now is to hire responsibly while addressing risks to personal health. As stated before, we know a lot of our team live with those susceptible to COVID-19. This is nearly half our team member base, so we inevitably have a cap number on who we can bring back. This is all to say that two things will happen:

1. We cannot re-open our stores with the Boba Guys Express model as fast as we’d like.

2. We will need to hire from the outside. We did also lose a couple people from our management team who switched companies/sectors. We know there will be more as a part of natural attrition.

We just want to be upfront about why we are hiring— we need more, amazing people who want to bridge cultures. (Btw, if you got those UI benefits, we advise keeping it. It’s a sweet ass deal.)

We also want to be incredibly transparent about our upcoming PPP Loan. There is a forgiveness portion but we need to spend it on payroll within a 8-week time-frame. If we cannot rehire enough of our team, we lose the forgiveness portion and it turns into debt— something we’re collecting every day with our stores being closed. Debt is not good. We share because there are tens of thousands of businesses around the country going through the exact same situation as us. We share our situation— just like we did with Wells Fargo, my congressional testimony, and interviews— because we are trying to change the system or at least push it to be more considerate. And together, we have.

About the Future

I’m going to soon share a couple internal emails that we sent out a while back to gather a list of individuals who wanted to come back to Boba Guys. At the time, we didn’t know if they harbored deep resentment about the layoffs. We know many supported our decisions, but we have to assume some didn’t get it and probably never will. As a leader, you learn the hardest decisions are easily critiqued. As I tell my mentees and team, you just gotta be confident in your decision-making ability. And if those decisions are always rooted in the same core principles, you’ll be fine. You know ours: Quality, Transparency, Giving a Damn, #DialogueWins, and #DoYourHW.

For now, we want to tease a theme in our internal emails…

We do not want another cultural war in this country. A great article came out recently— is the post-COVID America more like the Great Depression or Great Recession? One exacerbated income inequality while the other slowed it down. We are aware that there’s a growing divide between workers and employers, have and have nots, and most importantly, extremists and moderates. As a company that prides itself on bridging cultures, we think the solution is simply #dialoguewins. The world is incredibly nuanced and we often lack the empathy and curiosity to see the beauty and truth in the nuance.

I end with a scene with one of my favorite movies, Good Will Hunting. In it, a wise-ass Will Hunting thinks just because he’s read about Michaelangelo, he knows what it’s like to be in the Sistine Chapel. I think that’s a lot of what’s going on right now. We need a lot less posturing and a lot more empathy— and the only way to empathy is to have real dialogue.

Onwards.

Andrew (and Bin)

Resources for COVID-19: Employers and Businesses

Hi All,

Editor’s Note: as of April 14, we helped launch a centralized resource site for SMBs here: acesmallbusiness.org

We had trouble scaling all the updates, so please refer to that page moving forward. Thank you!

We had such a large response from my original COVID-19 post that we are going to break out the resources and messaging into this separate post.

FOR EMPLOYERS

US-based businesses resources:

• SBA Disaster Relief Fund - this is the general announcement regarding SBA-backed loans administered by state for businesses impacted by COVID-19. Apply here.

• Facebook $100M Small Business Grants - just announced. More details to come.

California businesses:

San Francisco businesses:

• San Francisco Office of Economic Workforce Development Resiliency Fund - a $10K grant for microbusinesses (1-5 employees) that

• San Francisco-based Disaster Loan - administered by the local SBA office. Apply here.

• San Francisco City Deferment and Relief Schedule - San Francisco has deferred a lot of the fees and payments.

• Los Angeles Micro Loan - $5K-20K for small businesses affected by COVID-19.

New York businesses:

• New York Relief for Small Businesses - businesses with fewer than 100 employees are eligible for a $75K loan

FOR EMPLOYEES

• Unemployment Insurance (UI) for California employees

COVID-19 Update

Boba Guys and Gals Over Over the World,

We want to make a long-form post of the recent public announcement. Y’all here because you’re probably curious about what actions we’re taking within Boba Guys to ensure our team and the community is safe during this crisis. But some of you are here because you’ve been following my (Andrew) personal updates about the COVID-19 situation. I had about a week to prepare for this announcement, but nothing can ever prepare us for something like this. I’ve been in discussions with senior-level officials across all forms of organizations— government, businesses, and non-profits— it’s been a while since something like this has happened.

So what I’m about to make public is an email I wrote to our team earlier this week (below). Before that, I want to talk about the following.

TO ALL THE SMALL BUSINESSES WE’VE LOVED BEFORE AND WILL ALWAYS LOVE

I want to address the small businesses across the country first as that is whom I’m hearing from directly the most (after my team). This is going to be a hard time for everyone… including us. My team and I did the math and estimate that we have only 2-3 months of working capital without any help. We account for layoffs to part-time team members just as we’ve seen happening across the world. If we go bare bones, we can float up to 10 months, but that would mean we go into furloughs/unpaid leave across the entire company, including myself and my co-founder, Bin. I share this so transparently because uncertainty and opacity is what’s causing unnecessary panic and anxiety.

Me and fellow businesses that “seem to have it together” are in troubleshooting mode, too. We are in it along with everyone else, but that is why I went straight to D.C. and have been fighting for us behind-the-scenes for over a month. We are fortunate enough to have a platform and voice that we’ve built over the years to fight for businesses. I’ve been thanking my friends for tolerating my TED Talks all these years… I guess our big energy is gonna be put to use now! ;)

So brass tacks. And I don’t want to come off as alarmist, but I hope you see anything in this post assumes that we always do our homework as we know information is wonky on the internet. My testimony in Congress last week is just the tip of the iceberg. Congress is working extremely hard on a third stimulus package and other mechanisms to keep small businesses afloat. I know most businesses do not have as much working capital as us. My estimate is that 20% of small businesses are on their last couple payroll cycles. I’ve been escalating this to the legislators. Even after passing the bills, they need to execute the programs ASAP which is a lot to ask given our style of government.

[updated as of March 15, 2020 1:30pm PST]

The biggest assistance that exists is from the Small Business Administration (SBA). I’m making this a working page, so this is a list of programs they offer currently:

• SBA Disaster Loan Relief Fund: this is going to help some, not all, businesses who need working capital. You can get up to $2M. It’ll be administered state by state in the SBA office.

Other cities and states have also created their own assistance programs. I haven’t seen anyone putting the programs together, so here is what I’ve collected this far:

• San Francisco OEWD: $10K grant to micro small businesses

Now, about those taxes and fees. I can’t cover every possible scenario as the media has been providing good coverage on this, but cities and states are already announcing deferment on taxes, loans, and other financial levers. That being said, we still need to bubble this up to creditors, vendors (like suppliers), landlords, banks, and other lenders or entities that collect on credit. As I’ve noted before, cash flow is the lifeblood of small businesses, so please conserve cash as much as possible.

TO ALL THE GOOD PEOPLE WE LOVE EVERYDAY

As written in my note to the team, it’s been a honor serving and employing you all over the last eight years. Bin and I have been reminiscing a lot over the past few weeks as we cancelled our The Boba Book media tour, Coachella x 88rising activations, Boba Guys Japan launch, and countless other programs we wanted to bridge cultures with. While we are sad, we know it has to be done and planned accordingly. But writing my internal team memo and making an announcement during our last 4M (my leadership meetings) as I flew out to D.C.— that is probably the hardest thing I ever had to do professionally.

On my way to the airport, I cried a lot. This isn’t about me, but I was encouraged to share this as my friends tell me that other leaders should follow suit. Even though we “own” or “founded” the company, nothing breaks our hearts more than letting people go. For those of you on our team reading this, we are really sorry. We are sorry we couldn’t do more. We are sorry we couldn’t change the system fast enough. We hope when we get out of this that you’ll come back to us or our friends’ businesses.

You can see why we try so hard to change culture— that is the only true medicine that is going to get us through these times. I don’t want to talk much about the racism and xenophobia until after this is all over, but it’ll be a long yet necessary road to recovery.

But Bin and I are eternal optimists. We always bet on the future. And from what I can tell you, the overwhelming majority of us are going to be okay. We will have food on the table and most of our loves ones around. I said my last in-person goodbye to my dad over a month ago because he has severe adult asthma. I can’t imagine what it’s like for you all who never even had a chance to experience one extra minute in person with your loved ones. My heart is with you. While you can, please FaceTime your loved ones. In times of isolation, this is where humanity needs each other the most. We are social creatures for a reason… including my introverted wife. ;)

I am getting a lot of questions about personal finances, so I’ll try to inform as much as I can. If you are laid off and qualify, file for unemployment immediately. If you are at a part-time job, some of you will be covered either through your company’s Catastrophe Pay or House Bill 6201 which is a stimulus package that provides free testing and extended paid sick leave up to 14 days. Ideally, the Senate passes the bill tomorrow (Monday). This would reimburse (some, not all) businesses who absorb the costs. There’s also Medicaid assistance, but that’s changing by the hour, so please read the news for that.

If you are renting, I would ask for forgiveness or abatement from your landlord. I’ll be working on a template for the public to be issued shortly. I know April 2020 rents are coming up. Hold on tight.

And if none of this affects you financially, please consider helping your favorite establishment by buying gift cards, donating, or patronizing their business if possible (delivery, e-commerce). Also, a PSA for the 30 million small businesses out there, many of whom are retail-based— please don’t rub your ability to WFH in. ;) We get it, but at least bring us some granola bars from your kitchenette!

TO THE WORLD

I know this isn’t a typical small business post, but if you read our blog, you’ll see that this is absolutely normal for us. 😜

I mentioned that I tabled this post because I didn’t want to cause unnecessary panic, but I also think our country needs to take it way more seriously now. In the past week, I’ve seen friends party on Bourbon Street, attend group gatherings & pop-ups, and drink in St. Patty’s Day festivities. We get it and we love you… but please stop immediately. You acting a fool. Like for real. Fools.

And we know our stores are open at the very moment and even though we’ve taken every precautionary measure, we are still going to lock down our stores very soon. We will be one of the first in the industry (coffee, boba, tea) to do so.

We don’t know what happens from here, we really don’t. I’ll still be working with legislators, media outlets, and non-profits to address the response in a systematic way (sorry, that’s the only thing I know how to do well), but I don’t know what happens to my loved ones, our team, and the businesses around us. To be candid, Bin and I are pretty cash-poor as most entrepreneurs are. The thing is, I’m still not scared. Sad, yes. Frustrated, yes. But not scared.

I lived through 9/11. I clamped down through the 2008 crash. So did many of you. I have been taking comfort and chatting with leaders I look up to and one said, “Look at the future and see what’s there.” I see my team. I see young people. I’ve written about this before… my generation, so-called Millennials, often sh*t on the upcoming generation because we think they’re entitled or soft. They are not. They are at times uninformed, but it’s our job to lead them and help them develop into future leaders that can maybe stop the vicious cycle.

A lot of what’s happening is direct result of the system we— the Boomers and Millennials— built. America’s COVID-19 response in relation to the rest of the world is on-brand. We should have expected this. As with climate change, we need to think more holistically and long-term. That is the only way we turn all of this around. There will be another pandemic in our lifetime. What then? Another toilet paper hoarding bunker? Another streak of unwarranted racism?

I prefer to be a thermostat, not a thermometer. Dictate the culture, not react to it. I ask the next generation reading this, please do better than us. To our team, you know about how we teach the three pillars of the Modern American Team: Positive EQ, Confident Vulnerability, and Big Picture Thinking? Use all of it. That’s all we ask of you as we move on from this.

In the great words of the poet Tupac, keep ya head up. We hope to see you on the other side.

Grace and peace,

Andrew (and Bin)

---

Hi All,

We hope you are all safe and well. I know we're in precarious times, so we want to give you all an update that covers most of your questions and potential anxieties about COVID-19 and subsequent ramifications. We know there may still be outstanding questions, so we apologize in advance for any fragmented information-- hope you can see we are doing the best we can as news is coming in hourly.

Background

As you know, I had the honor of going into D.C. and testifying on behalf of small business owners in the House Small Business Committee earlier this week. I'm still working with the Committee on various bills including the stimulus package that House Speaker Pelosi is proposing as we speak. I share this context as the following is the big picture culmination of everything I know as a business leader, American citizen, and public servant.

Planning or Baseline and Worst-Case Scenarios

Katie (our new COO), Bin, and I have been in discussions over the past week on how to best handle the situation that seems to have no true timeline. We have to balance being proactive on what is about to come, yet also remain pragmatic enough so we don't fan the flames of hysteria. With all the information at my disposal, we think it's best to break down the situation into two scenarios: baseline and worst case scenario.

The baseline scenario is the state we are in right now. This in which there are partial shutdowns and general messaging about staying at home and social distancing. 

The worst-case scenario is something we should keep on our radar as we monitor the news every day. Keep in mind that this all depends on triggers such as a systemwide transportation shutdown (like NY subways or BART) or someone on our team is officially diagnosed with COVID-19.

Day-to-Day Action Items During Baseline Scenario

As your store is in the baseline state, please continue following the normal COVID-19 health precautions:

• Wash hands vigorously and often.

• Wear gloves at all times and change when switching tasks.

• If you feel sick, stay at home. 

• Drink lots of water. Sleep a lot. (I know those online college courses will put you to sleep... watch them!)

We are also going to make some in-store changes effective immediately (if not already done):

• Remove all self-serve vessels like syrups, straws, and free/communal water. Bamboo straws are handed to guests. Wear gloves.

• Regularly sanitize and full wipe-down surfaces every hour. Make sure you wipe POS screen on terminal!

• Encourage cashless/contactless transactions by asking "Would you like to pay with a card or Apple Pay?" 

• Marketing will encourage people to use DoorDash or Order Ahead (if available).

• Stickers and freebies to be handed off to guests, but remove Flavorbooks as those are shared too much.

• Remove communal snacks in team areas (we see those giant bags of Cheetos!)

• No personal cups both for team members and guests who bring their own. They can get a discount if they have their vessel, just don't use it. Note: if someone bought a brand new reusable vessel... yes, you can wash and sanitize that and serve in it. Not likely, but we want to spell it out for you.

What Happens Next

At this point, we're going to take off the Founders Hat and put on our Boba Dad/Mom hat. We know that most of you are concerned about your job security and financial situation. This is something that we've been discussing at length and do not take anything lightly. You are like our family. We built this movement together. We've seen some of you grow up into amazing men and women. And we've even seen some of you start a family with us. Over the last month, we've been thinking about how to best handle the worst-case economic scenario. 

We don't know what the future holds, but we can share with you how we're approaching this. First, we want to make sure your jobs are secure as long as we can. If you've been following our public messages, you'll see that I've been instructing everyone to save as much money as possible. It's about cash flow. Second, we need to plan for every scenario with the end goal in mind-- we need ensure Boba Guys can weather the storm. 

That being said, we know if and when we need to cut hours, we do it with the long-term goal in mind. Every company is working through these scenarios. We are already exhausting every option to help our cash flow, including negotiating rent concessions, preemptively applying for financial assistance, suspending business travel, pausing store expansion, and eliminating all superfluous business expenses. But if we do the math, we might still fall short especially if the economy doesn't recover-- hence we are setting expectations now.

We know there are some questions about Catastrophe Pay or some assistance on a personal level. At this time, companies of our size simply don't have the resources to offer a program like the 14-day Catastrophe Pay (e.g. SBUX, Sweetgreen). And even if we could offer it to some, we don't know how it's possible to validate given test kits are not readily available. We know the local, state, and federal governments are working on a solution like expanding paid sick leave and unemployment benefits, so we will be the first to let you know as the news comes. (I'm actually one of the people advising the federal government on this.)

Adulting is Hard

I've been hearing from both team members and the public a common theme: "Andrew, this is scary. I don't know what to do." This is my two cents for both the team member asking me and those in the public sliding into my DMs.

As you know, Bin and I ascribe to the idea of #TransparencyWins. I've been told by some to not write an email this candid. Well, you are all adults and the reason you're at Boba Guys or fans of ours is because you believe in our mission and radical transparency. So yes, things are going to get worse before they get better. What we can do now is to rewire our brain for trauma and process everything in the healthiest way possible.

Seeing this play out in front of my eyes (as I was in D.C. during the first coronavirus announcement), I can tell you that the world is super complicated, which is why it matters more than ever that we focus on the big picture. There's a reason why Boba Guys got involved in social justice issues early on. There's a reason why I serve on advisory committees and consistently inject thought leadership into our ethos (sorry for the TED Talks). So to be blunt, sitting on the sidelines is possibly the worst thing we can do as citizens. And almost as bad is enabling our addiction to terse, clickbait answers as that is how misinformation and panic spread. The hope we have for each one of you is that this crisis ignites a flame inside you to #DoYourHW and become #GlobalCitizens. Together, we can change the culture of our country and build more bridges through dialogue and thinking harder.

There is no winner with the COVID-19 pandemic. It is not about companies vs. workers, East vs. West, or Blue vs. Red. It is more nuanced than that. That's what we hope shifts in the mind of our team and of the general public. We just need to salvage what we can, lick our wounds, and burst out of the gates stronger than ever when it's all over. 

And to everyone who has put in their blood, sweat, and tears over the first quarter, thank you so much. The next few months were supposed to be lit: Coachella, The Boba Book, 88rising, and Boba Guys Japan.  That's how fast everything can disappear. We can't take anything for granted. But as much as it sucks, we still have a stellar team and the best fanbase/clientele in the entire world. 

We will surely keep you updated with up-to-the-minute information as things clear Congress and government assistance come into play. We will get through this together! Stay safe and as Tupac says, keep ya head up.

More love. More compassion. More empathy. 

Onwards,

Andrew, Bin, and Katie

Big Boba Energy

As we roll into our newest set of stores, we are adding another emblem to our storytelling stack. It’s cute, no? ;)

The “Everything Housemade” emblem/principle all about making our drinks and even many of our pastries in-house, where we control exactly what goes in them. Owning every part of the process is a level of transparency few if any boba shops (and coffee shops) achieve.

Thank you for your support as we reset the bar for everyone.

*beware: TED Talk ahead*

When we started eight years ago, we set out to change the industry. We championed #FightThePowder because we wanted to see a boba revolution. We did the behind-the-scenes leg work for years by convincing ignorant landlords that boba is a “viable” business model and that our community deserves to be seen and represented. We started sourcing our own teas and ingredients (and straws) when advisors said it was too costly. And we vertically-integrated with our own bakery and boba factory when many said it wasn’t worth our time.

Fast forward a bit, if you frequent a premium boba shop in the States, chances are the shop now touches our supply chain network. We then channel those profits to drive other initiatives like our search for more convenient reusable vessels, sustainable single-use items, and larger cultural initiatives for marginalized gropus. So yes, a revolution did come. Sadly, all this time, we failed to see a larger impending revolution. And that’s what we want to finally address today. Sorry it took so long.

The biggest lesson we learned in the last two years is that we let other industries and cultures take credit for food and beverage trends and just as quickly, tear ours down. Suffice to say, it is disrespectful to our community and a large reason why we took the time to write The Boba Book. So much of what we consume today — the ingredients, the spices, the techniques, the aesthetics, the rituals come from our oft-misunderstood culture. We can handle a bit of “ew, boba is gross,” but it’s gone to another level now.

We have an issue with anyone that takes the “convenient” parts of one’s culture and throws away everything else as if one’s customs and practices are superior over another. Yes, culture does evolve and we should nurture that evolution. But it requires dialogue and empathy, values we preach both internally to our diverse set of team members and externally to our community and businesses that draw inspiration from us. Without mutual respect and understanding, it becomes a vicious cycle of finger-pointing and cultural pissing match. It’s even more ignorant than the landlords we met in early days of our business. Nothing good comes of it. And as third culture global citizens who can see both sides of East and West, we can tell you that the othering and profiling isn’t helping.

Many of you immediately asked us to address the global crisis and its affect on our community. At first, we didn’t know what the say, which is why we’ve been relatively silent. It’s always awkward to address blatant racism in people who fundamentally see the world differently as it is our belief that it only creates a further divide. If you are reading this because someone sent you here to see thing from another perspective, we welcome you. We are known to be one of the few voices in the food & beverage community that speaks to both Eastern and Western cultures— we understand this can come off as a defensive TED talk. This isn’t that. It’s a bridge to help you understand why our community feels so hurt by what’s going on in the world.

Just the other day, I (Andrew) ran into someone who told me their kid won’t dare eat in front of their classmates because they are now being teased about what he brings for lunch. We honestly thought we were passed that a decade ago. We empathize with the kid who is now scarred for the remainder of his childhood. He will grow up being ashamed of his culture and will likely inadvertently retaliate in other ways (i.e. profiling other cultures thinking it’s acceptable or justified.) That is not okay. And as other outlets are reporting, this isn’t a one-off anecdote. It’s getting normalized, so it takes big energy to put that to an end.

So in sum, as we feel the world growing more skeptical of our culture and practices, we want to reframe the narrative— and we hope others, especially other cafes, boba shops, and marginalized food & beverage companies will join us.

Remember, a lot of what we see today in the American food landscape comes from OUR community. Many of the top shows feature our cuisine, our culture, our traditions. We should never ever feel ashamed of who we are and how we live. With more empathy, more compassion, our beautiful culture will spread faster than any contagion.

We set the culture, not follow it, so here’s to another revolution.

202020 Vision

How do you recap a whole year? And how does one start a new decade?

Exactly ten years ago, Bin was still at Timbuk2 and I was finishing up business school. We always knew we wanted to work together, but in what industry? Tech? Apparel? Media? It seems like ages ago when Bin and I sat at Tao Yin in the Mission, spitfiring ideas about our futures. We had great careers going for us, but we both felt like we had a different calling. Something was tugging at us, even then.

CULTURE IS EVERYTHING

Culture. People probably don’t know this unless you listen to our interviews and deep cuts… we are culture nerds. Like NERDS. Food, fashion, media, politics, history. You name it, we obsess over it. We would spend hours talking about how culture ebbs and flows. How does a trend start? How does a norm get created? So it began. We wanted to make any hairbrained idea we worked on about culture. It started with a pop-up, then Kickstarter, then multiple stores, then a tea company, then a factory, and now a book, show, and international expansion.

It sounds crazy to say, but when we rolled out “Bridging Cultures” as our company motto in 2012, we knew that the world was headed into a darker, more divided time. Ask our team. We would talk about this ALL THE TIME… in Obama’s Camelot! We weren’t Chicken Little. We just knew because we could feel what we happening. We could feel the pent up frustration. We could feel the lack of empathy and vulnerability. We could feel the disconnect. This was pre-2016 election. It was pre-Brexit. Pre-Cancel Culture.

We started Boba Guys with the idea that despite our differences, we can bring people together and bring out the best in each other. We can share about what makes us unique. We don’t blend cultures. We bridge cultures. Blending results in homogeneity, like a cultural soup that tastes like everything and nothing at the same time. But being pragmatic and business-trained, we knew we had to deliver a core competency first: boba. Culture as a product isn’t tangible enough.

There’s no revisionist history. It was simple: first for the first few years, we had to prove that boba could be for everyone. In 2011, that was a novel idea. Some people hated us for it. “How could you bastardize something so sacred?” You can see the early comments on Yelp and Facebook. We sold out. We made “inauthentic” boba. But we knew you all believed in what we were doing. We had you on our side. That’s what mattered. We hear our favorite artists say that to their fans all the time. We never took that idea seriously. After years of you encouraging us, sticking with us despite some controversial decisions and stances, we now know the power of that loyalty. We are SO grateful.

As we found our voice, we started to use our resources and platform for small causes you want us to fight for. We began that a couple years ago as we fought for representation— to be seen as a whole. Then we started a factory to bring jobs back to America. Our own people got mad at us for that one! “That’s like Bruce Lee bringing kung fu to Westerners,” someone said. Then we talked about single-use plastic bans. Then Cancel Culture. With each step, we emphasized dialogue. That’s the M.O. throughout these first eight years. We often thought, “If only more people could see nuance and have empathy for each other.” It was exhausting.

We struggled with our voice for a LONG TIME. A failed podcast. Remember Loose Leaf!? Products that didn’t move and a vocal minority that didn’t see the big picture. We even had a few team members that didn’t see eye to eye with our vision. We rarely talk about our failures outside of podcasts and deep cuts, but it’s there. There are plenty of things we wish we could do better, but we’re super content with where we are today.

A NEW SAGA

Now, as our Origin Story winds down, we are transitioning to a new phase of our story. Our Infinity Saga, the first saga, is over. The next phase of Boba Guys is going to be weird— mainly because we’re in the middle chapter. The second part of any trilogy is always awkward. LOTR: The Two Towers, Avengers 2, Return of the Jedi, Attack of the Clones… Empire Strikes Back is an anomaly! (Okay, we won’t debate Star Wars lore in a post.) The point is, we’re embarking on a new journey! ;)

So what’s it going to look like for us as a company and you as fans, team members, and family? Well, we’re glad you asked. It starts with building the foundation for this upcoming new saga.

The first part that you’ll see now is what we call “The 100 Year” vision. It’s something we have been talking about internally for nearly a year. As much as we say we intended to make Boba Guys into something, we were still quite conservative in our approach to growth. Our Asian parents trained us too well in that department. We never overspent. We always stretched ourselves to the next warehouse, the next van, the next piece of equipment. Grit, sometimes, has its limitations.

What the public doesn’t know is that Boba Guys needs to rebuild a LOT of our infrastructure. Many companies at our stage do. We have antiquated processes and protocol. We don’t have the right asses in the right seats. We don’t have manuals for every step along the way. We don’t even have a proper manager onboarding process. We are the first to admit that we have a long way to go. If the first saga of any company is the origin story and the last act is the finale about the resolution/equilibrium (i.e. exit, IPO, evergreen, bankruptcy), then we are in this squishy middle act where you typically lay the groundwork for the epic climax in the final act.

So what’s the most important part about this middle act? Culture. So far, we’ve winged it as most of our culture was based on one-off hypotheses we had about organizations. But as our team will tell you, we finally sat down and put together a plan to make sure Boba Guys lasts a long time. It’s all built around culture. The processes will come. The new software system will come. The new fancier equipment will come. But enduring culture is the one thing we need to lay down immediately, as intentionally as possible.

That’s why this post was originally an internal email. That’s why it’s so f*cking long! Haha. But in order to fulfill our lofty goals, we need to have dialogue and bring everyone along, not just our leadership team.

The following is the actual slide that I presented to our leadership team a while ago. The idea is that in order to lead with vision and do things that the public and team members want us to do, we need to align on how we see the world. This slide is how we will approach our journey. We’ve been dropping breadcrumbs in our IG Stories, What’s Up Wednesday, and podcast interviews. We had to make sure our interpretation of where culture is heading is the right one. Because if we’re wrong about things like dialogue or transparency, then we’re basically f*cked. We in big cities and large metros have to understand that each of those principles we list are technically debatable.

100 YEAR COMPANY

Some of you are asking yourself, where did you get this idea of a “100 Year” company? It’s kinda self-indulgent, isn’t it? Actually, it’s just a term that we took from our favorite founder and company in the world, Yvon Chouinard of Patagonia.

We just took it to the next level. So we will address this once and probably never again… what do Bin and I want to do with Boba Guys? And who has financial stake in Boba Guys because won’t they f*ck it up? In the spirit of our #RadicalTransparency, let’s address it all. (Keep in mind, no company ever does this so go easy on us.)

It’s been eight years and we are still 100% independent. We did take ~$1M of angel money from our friends and some cultural icons: Jeremy Lin, Wen Zhou from 3.1 Phillip Lim, Andrew Chen (before he was at a16z), Steve Chen of YouTube, Will Smith and family, and Dan Lin, the producer of the Lego movies and Aladdin. Together, they will own roughy 5% of Boba Guys Inc. Bin, me, and some of our early team members own the rest. No shady Trump money. No rich families (both our families don’t have money). No franchising. So once and for all… when we say we built this together from the ground up, we mean it. ;) We thought the subtle flex would work all these years, but the rumors kept growing!

There is no boba shop or even cafe chain at our scale this independent and autonomous (we’re not counting the family-run businesses that are decades old). Also, Bin and I are the only people on the board. That’s why we can do whatever we want like close down every store for team outings and spend nearly $30K on #BallsForAll for the community.

Okay, there’s the lingering question EVERYONE has been asking us lately. What do you want to do with Boba Guys?

We want to build an EVERGREEN company, just like Patagonia. We do not want to sell. Nor do we plan on ever franchising. This year, we will hit 20 stores. 20 in 2020 (Yes! That’s the meaning behind the graphic.) At 20 stores, we basically need to think about the future way more. We have a target on our back. People expect more out of us. We’re not a random hobby that turned into a business anymore. We have hundreds of people that we need to look after. And we have millions of guests and fans that come to us every year that now want us to lead the change in things like sustainability, social impact, and business practices.

We don’t make excuses for ourselves, but we are radically candid— we don’t really know what we’re doing most of the time. That’s why we hired a COO, Katie Myrick (you’ll get to know her much better in 2020). But we do know how culture works. We do know that in order to do all the things you want from us, we need to solidify the cultural foundation of our company and our ecosytem. That way, if someone tries to put words into our mouth or hijack our team from within, we would hope our company and community would eject it out of our ecosystem before anything happens.

In order to build a company that lasts 100 years, we had to ask ourselves, “will this be relevant in 5 years? Will it be relevant in 10 years? 100 years?” That’s how we come to the conclusion on which side of history we land on. It’s how we bet early on being super transparent and vulnerable. It’s why started addressing Cancel Culture earlier this year because it was hindering society’s ability to have dialogue. And without dialogue, we can’t bridge cultures, our core mission. It’s all tied together. Bin and I have been talking about it for nearly eight years. And we guess that’s now why so many businesses and fans ask us for our take. It’s why you’re reading this long ass memo from a boba shop. Btw, it’s not a memo, it’s a mission statement (my all-time favorite movie btw). An updated mission statement for the new decade.

THE PRESTIGE

Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts. The first part is called “The Pledge”. The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course…it probably isn’t. The second act is called “The Turn”. The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you’re looking for the secret… but you won’t find it, because of course you’re not really looking. You don’t really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn’t clap yet. Because making something disappear isn’t enough; you have to bring it back. That’s why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call “The Prestige”. - The Prestige

Pardon the magic reference, but anyone who knows us well knows our affinity for magic. We know everyone thought this post was going to be a bit more concrete. Like an announcement about the next step of sustainability. Or living wages. Boba ready before 11am! Or perhaps even Boba Guys Japan. ;)

The prestige isn’t going to be found in this post. It’s going to happen over the course of this year. Bin and I recently laid out our 2020 initiatives and we’re not going to front. It is HUGE. Everyone thinks our book is going to be the big signature statement of 2020. It isn’t.

We know the biggest criticism of all of this is that Boba Guys is biting off more than we can chew. It’s not. The reason is because culture isn’t a function of work ethic. It’s a function of one’s soul or DNA. Boba Guys is and always will be a food & beverage company. But if you’ve noticed, last year in 2019, we started making investments, like media. We also started a not-for-profit job training and rehabilition business in San Francisco, Sunday Gather. The whole #BallsForAll campaign was a test to see if we can build something larger in a few years.

The thing they say about teams our size and businesses with our revenue is that we grow out of touch and forget where we came from. That is our concern, too. But with this post, we hope to have laid enough breadcrumbs for us to come back to our long-term vision. We don’t write like this often, but when we do, we make it count. Again, we will address the tactical things like compostable cups (btw there’s a massive worldwide PLA shortage which is why we’ve been on hold since the Fall), leadership pipeline, and community outreach, but we just want everyone to know that none of it matters if the culture isn’t set right.

Lastly, if you are one of our team members or a business that we’re mentoring, we encourage you to adhere to our principles outlined in the slide above. One day, we’ll share the entire presentation with the public, but for now, please use those principles as a guide. We will shape culture together, one norm at a time.

Grace and peace,

Andrew & Bin

Balls For All 2019: That's a Wrap

Dear Boba Guys and Gals,

Wow, what can we say? This year’s #BallsForAll campaign was remarkable! When we sat down to brainstorm new ways of celebrating the holidays with you all we didn’t expect our final idea to turn out as incredible and fulfilling as it was. Although it was a lot of fun handing out gift cards to our fans in the past, we thought that it was time for us to do something more that would reflect our mission- to bridge cultures- with our local community. Of course, we had to include our fans, but we needed to reach further than our inner circle. 

Ultimately, we decided to hold five dinners around the Bay Area. Not as a PR exercise or a promotional campaign, but to sit and have a genuine conversation with different communities and listen to stories that we wouldn’t hear otherwise. How many times do we get to visit senior citizens and talk to them about their early years? Or give away food and boba on a food truck to a local neighborhood? And, our personal favorite, visiting a Boys & Girls Club to talk about what middle and high schoolers are struggling with nowadays? (Which is a lot, apparently.)

With that being said, we want to give thanks to all the groups that we had a chance to connect with the past few months.

First, we visited the brave firefighters of Sonoma County. Thanks to their courageous efforts, the Kincade fires had newly been contained when we held our first dinner at the Schell-Vista fire station in Sonoma. We got to introduce some of them to boba tea for the first time and enjoy an amazing catered dinner. 

Our next stop was to the Peninsula Del Rey retirement home, where we met memorable residents such as “Boba Richard”! Along with introducing them to boba for the first time (apparently they’re not too fond of having “balls in their mouth”), we also learned the secret to living a lengthy life is to “give everybody a bad time”, “Pond’s Cold Cream”, and most importantly to “move forward, (and) don’t look back”. 

For Thanksgiving, we volunteered at Duc Loi in the Mission for their annual Thanksgiving Day event. We served full meals to hundreds of people in the community. Some of our roles included bagging fruit, portioning out cake, and packaging the meals. It was a beautiful sight to see all of us working towards one simple goal of serving people in the community.

That following week, we decided to go out on the streets and bring meals to the people instead. Alongside our friends at Mobilize Love and Sunday Gather, we drove around the Bayview neighborhood in a food truck to serve 100 boxed meals to the community. We handed out a mini drink, chicken wrap, and sides to anyone who asked. We ran out of meals in a little over an hour!

We decided to give the Peninsula some love and pay a visit to the local Boys and Girls Club in Redwood City. Being at the heart of Silicon Valley, this specific Boys & Girls Club puts a huge focus on technology proficiency on their kids as they understand how important it is to be acclimated with tools for the future. What was arguably more interesting is how amazing they were in foosball and ping pong (just ask Andrew- he got a good taste of it)!

And finally, we ended the campaign with the reason we ever started in the first place- our fans. Being able to share our story, vision, and purpose with our dearest fans is something that will never go unnoticed or unappreciated. It’s because of you all that Boba Guys is able to achieve everything we set out to achieve and get to where we are today. All in all, we are eternally grateful.

Before we wrap this up, we want to give one last thanks to everyone else who helped us spread this holiday cheer around the Bay Area: Schell-Vista Fire Department, Ray Mulas, Mike Mulas, Broadway Market, Sonoma Salads, Cline Cellars, Highway 12 Vineyards and Winery, Costeaux French Bakery, Chinoiserie Bakeshop, Joyce Tang, Peninsula Del Rey, Mobilize Love, Christian Huang, Sunday Gather, Deuki Hong, Boys and Girls Club of the Peninsula, Michael Jones, Sophiana Leto, Lauren Kang, Sunday at the Museum, Rachel Merkadeau, Sharon Tang, and Karen Grace Granadosin.

It was a wholesome experience to put smiles on the faces of people who were once strangers. Our hearts are filled as we conclude this holiday campaign and we cannot wait to continue this tradition next holiday season!

Balls for All 2019

Boba Guys and Gals,

For our longtime friends, chances are you’re familiar with our annual holiday season campaign #BallsForAll. In years past, we hid Boba Guys gift cards around SF, LA, and NY as a scavenger hunt over the course of twelve days. Hints about the locations of the gift cards were posted on our social media platforms and fans would search throughout the cities to claim them. We asked that the winner of each gift card treat a friend to a drink to share the holiday cheer.

Last year, we did a Fortnite Battle Royale themed scavenger hunt with references to locations and items found in the popular game. On the final day, the Victory Royale grand prize was a Loot Llama filled with Boba Guys schwag, on top of a $150 Boba Guys gift card! This was just one way we’ve been able to engage and interact with you all over the past four years in the spirit of giving back with a fun twist. This year, however, we wanted to try something new, something deeper.

As you may know, our mission is to bridge cultures. With that in mind, we wanted to utilize the resources we have available to bring our communities together in favor of giving back on a greater scale. We want to do more than just giving money or resources to those in need - we want to engage. But with whom?

For starters, we want to engage with those affected by or fighting the California fires. Firefighters risk their lives to protect our communities every day, especially during the recent Kincade Fire in Sonoma County. On a different note, we also thought of the elderly who may be far from their families, leaving them with no loved ones to spend the holidays with.

Through this holiday season, we’ve decided to hold five dinners to serve groups such as these. We were inspired by social gatherings such as Friendsgiving and Shabbat where food is shared between old and new friends.

This is a chance for Boba Guys to join its communities, learn their stories, and thank them.

Our first dinner will be held on November 12th at the Schell-Vista Fire Protection District firehouse in Sonoma Valley. We will be serving Schell-Vista, Novato, and Petaluma firefighters and their families. These firefighters helped to contain the recent Kincade fires that burned over 77,000 acres in Sonoma County. If you would like to donate to the Schell-Vista Fire Protection District, please write a check payable to Schell-Vista Volunteers and send it to 22950 Broadway, Sonoma, CA 95476. (Schell-Vista Volunteers is a 501 C3 organization so your donation is tax-deductible.) If you would like to donate to the Sonoma County Resilience Fund, a long-term disaster recovery fund that helps individuals impacted by the fires, supports the long-term effects of trauma, and creates housing solutions for our community, please click here.

Please stay tuned throughout the next few weeks to learn more about our #BallsForAll community dinners and how you can donate to the communities we will be serving. Thank you for being a part of this new journey with us!

Degrees of Connection Cup

Degrees of Separation or Degrees of Connection?

You’re at a gathering -- you know absolutely no one except the friend that invited you. Suddenly, out of the corner of your eye, you see someone else you know from a completely unrelated context. During that moment, there’s a level of excitement, curiosity, and connection between you and that person, which always leads to the famous response: “No way! You know so-and-so?” These are the degrees of connection that make the world feel so small, and the place where intersection begins. 

This idea of “Degrees of Connection” is inspired by the popularized social theory “Six Degrees of Separation” found prevalently in both our personal lives and throughout the history of pop culture. It repeats itself time and time again, even in the way that we tell stories.

Our entire team are students of culture -- we’re nerds who love peeking into the worlds of sociology, business, economics, art history, anthropology, and STEM fields to draw our influence. You can see that even from the early days of treating drink-making like a giant chemistry experiment.

There was a popular show in the ’80’s by Bill Moyer, Joseph Campbell, and LucasFilm called the Power of Myth. Here, they went into depth on how common archetypes have shaped culture, stories, and how we interact with the world. Similarly, we believe different types of drinks and food are archetypal to multiple cultures, sometimes completely unrelated.

When coming up with this concept of what connects us all together, we collaborated with the product team to find drinks that were enjoyed in different pockets around the world. The idea of “same same but different” often connects the dots between different groups of people and ultimately fits into our mission of Bridging Cultures. 

If we’re talking archetypal, our Malted Mint Chocolate drink is considered a phenomenon. It uses Milo, a chocolate malt powder that can be found in the Philippines, parts of Africa, the United Kingdom, Australia, Southeast Asia, South America, and Asian American cultures. It’s a staple drink from many of our childhoods. Another one of our seasonal drinks, Ponche, is often compared to mulled wine or spiced apple cider generally enjoyed around the holidays. The concept of a spiced, fruity drink then becomes an archetype that everyone can find a connection to. With such overarching themes, it’s not just a drink -- it’s a larger shared experience or feeling that sparks dialogue and gives us a platform to be open and embrace the culture. 

The Iterations 

Both our customers and employees found themselves inside last year’s cup illustration. Each of our stores’ teams had their own cup that people “tagged” themselves in. And after seeing how people interacted with last year’s cup, we had certain criteria for this year’s design. 

This years cup design: 

• Must be interactive, through coloring in or mad-lib style. 

• Must be tangential to our mission of Bridging Cultures

• Must have a deeper story to be told through the design

This idea that we’re all connected by some degree can be represented in several different ways. We took inspiration from artists like Picasso, Parra, and even node maps found commonly in data visualization. They highlight different aspects of human connection in their art whether it’s examining how languages intersect or the nonlinear connections of history, art, and culture. 

The first solid concept started simply with Googling “how to say connect in different languages”. We found that there were more similarities than differences in phonics and spelling coupled in different regions and cultures around the world.

For this concept design, we asked ourselves -- “How might we visualize how languages are connected to each other?” What eventually came from this was a node-map, often used in data visualization to organize items that vary in degrees of separation.

We iterated a couple of different ways to represent the data nodes. Eventually, we came to the conclusion that we wanted the word “connect” to be inside the lines to help visualize language as a bridge.

ITERATION 1

ITERATION 2

ITERATION 3

The next concept was not based on data or language but art & history. We were heavily inspired by art done in a single stroke because it felt very stream-of-conscious and human. Picasso’s one-liners were a heavy inspiration of this because, often with those pieces of work, he captured the essence of certain objects and subjects. Stylistically, the designs were inspired by some of Piet Parra’s work and the surrealist work of Luigi Serafini.

Finally, we asked ourselves “How might we convey human connection through a single thread?”. The end result was continuous line art of people sharing boba and bridging cultures that wraps around the entire cup .

This line art can further be found throughout our entire Fall Winter ‘19 campaign, especially in our latest flavorbook, our playlists, and our posts on Instagram. Keep an eye out for more of this art throughout the season. We’re incredibly proud of integrating our drink, our mission, and our design into a single thread. We hope you enjoy the art as much as we enjoyed creating it, and we hope you feel like it makes the world just a little more small.

Growing Up (Eight Years!)

October 6, 2019

We are about to hit our eight-year milestone this week, so we want to document it. (Remember when we all used to journal?!) When we started out as a pop-up in 2011, we never thought we’d get here. It was never our intention to turn this hobby into a fully-fledged business. Now, we have 15 stores, 350 team members, and finishing up our first book— while staying independent from VCs and anything else that would compromise our values. It’s always been about culture.

Over the course of writing our book, we had to do a lot of reflecting. We went back into the archives— even here, we’ve talked about a LOT of issues on this here blog. We left few stones unturned and only time will tell if we ended up on the right side of history. We already got some sh*t for our straw ban co-sign. Well, that passed over. We stressed ourselves out by bringing our tapioca manufacturing in-house and dropped it into Hayward, California. We still close down our stores every year for the annual all-hands outing (and incur landlord fines) like we will next week during the holiday. Our team always comes first— even before the public (yep, we are big Danny Meyer fans). We’ve always strived to do the right thing and create dialogue, so thanks for being patient with us as we continue to grow up.

We also want to clear some things up given it’s been a while since our last public post. We want to put this in writing as we’ve said it several times on our What’s Up Wednesday segment: Boba Guys is not VC-backed. Yes, we took angel money/seed capital from amazing friends and advisors, but we are not sitting on a stockpile of $ millions.

Not that VCs are bad or are we saying it out of defensiveness, but it is perhaps the #1 question we get nowadays. That, and how much we raised. Everyone thinks we raised millions like all the coffee, salad, juice, and boba companies coming from Asia. Nope. We (Bin and I) still pay ourselves $60-65K a year and reinvest it all into our company. Yep… 🤷🏻‍♂️ Let’s just say we have very understanding wives!

We only tell you this because we want to own OUR narrative. Letting VCs take credit for what we’ve built is disrespectful to every neighbor, community member, helpful landlord, and loyal fan that supported us over the last eight years.

Boba Guys is a testament to the power of our community. We hear from the VCs courting us every day that what we’re doing hasn’t really been done before. We sometimes do wish we had $10M-90M in the bank, so we can hire faster and stop making typical small business mistakes. But we think that’s what you want from us. From all your DMs, emails, and personal letters, we know Boba Guys is a business built by the people. We are making history. If this had been about money, we would have franchised or raised a lonnnng time ago. Again, it’s about culture. And yes, Bin and I are the only people on the board. We wouldn’t be able to write this post if we had to clear this by a real board. 😜

For the superfans, this is why you’re seeing us own our position unapologetically. We are being bolder about our stance on Cancel Culture and doubled-down on our commitment to the community. It’s why we teamed up with Deuki Hong in our latest project to build a not-for-profit that focus on job training.

Most of you know we came from lower-middle class (Andrew) and middle-class (Bin) upbringings. We haven’t forgotten where we came from. As our parents get older and their health deteriorates, we’re starting to think about how we can use our platform for good in health care and total compensation packages. We are known for doing our HW, so we want to keep that reputation.

And while we have the mic during this impromptu TED talk, we want to add that we aren’t here to out-woke other businesses. Or to shame them. That’s not constructive. Everyone is trying to do their best but things happen, so we need to encourage others to see the big picture. We aim to inspire. Instead of tearing down, let’s build up.

We know some people are starting to say we’re too big. “You’ve changed, bro.” We don’t think we are as we are still getting pushed around by taxes, vendors, or landlords, but we are well aware of the social climate. We acknowledge our role. We just hope our track record speaks for itself.

So we want to share with you a few things that are coming down the pike that you can look forward in the next year:

Viable Sustainability
After our bamboo fiber straws came out, we talked at our 100% compostable goal… the compostable cups come to SF Bay Area this Winter. We’ll be the first to do that in our industry. And tbh, given our specialized products and packaging, it’s been freakin’ hard. But it’s our job. We are chipping away at the lofty goals we set ourselves. But yes, those tariffs hurt, so it’s slowing down our transition.

Radical Transparency
We’re only touching upon this briefly now, but we have a big announcement that will be coming up shortly about our finances, what we do with our profits, and how we pay ourselves in a more sustainable, responsible way.

The public and our team have asked our opinion on the whole SoulCycle/Momofuku/Related Inc situation. We’ll talk about it soon. Warning: it’s kinda radical and not everyone will agree, but we promise transparency. It starts with #FollowTheMoney.

We understand that most of the public still thinks we franchise or we’re some giant VC-backed Series A machine, so we hope to maybe start kickstart a business trend or something. 🤞In the meantime, you can ask our wives about how thrifty we are [insert Asian stereotype joke here]. We’d all love to see that market rate salary bump! 🤣🙏🏼

Empathetic Dialogue
As with the theme of this post, we are tripling-down on dialogue. It’s the only way we know how to scale our culture.

We know we’re going to make decisions that you all won’t agree with. So far, we’ve gotten lucky. To be extra candid, we know will inevitably run into a wedge issue that will cause a stir. But as we tell people in the conferences and meetings we speak at, we forgot how to have civil discourse.

We need to understand nuances a lot better. Things get inherently more complex. As companies get bigger, they are incentivized to make decisions that are in the best interest of the greater good and not individuals (as impersonal as that sounds)— and given how transparent we are with our holdings, it really is about culture. We’ve said over and over that our favorite company in the world is Patagonia, so that’s our North Star squad goal. A 100-year old company.

Fewer, Better
Finally, we still need to reign in aspects of our business that we simply outgrew. We started an in-house bakery for that reason. We needed a way to bring our ideas to life without jumping through hurdles. Our size slowed us down a bit over the last year, so we need to refine our model a bit.

We also need to make our stores more consistent. Millions in funding will get you a $250K VP of Stores that can tidy up our ship. Welp. Sadly, we don’t have that cash. But we can make incremental changes. Progress, not perfection. We know some of you are still wondering why some stores have X and others don’t. Or some say X is possible while others say they can’t do it. All true. It wasn’t until recently that we finally changed all the menus to use the same ordering taxonomy! Eek.

So yeah, that’s the big anniversary reflection. Again, THANK YOU for supporting us over these eight years. Especially our team and alums… YOU really did all the work to get us. As we got bigger, Bin and I could barely hang on and you all got our back. You helped us bridge cultures every day… in our collabs, Arclight pop up, and guest appearances on shows we have no business being on. You all gave us intros, “liked” our posts, and shared our story. We are grateful that you still believe in us after all this time.

We used to say that we just wanted to make our Tiger Moms proud. Well, now, it’s about making y’all proud. You are our Tiger Family.

Stay positive. Keep pushing. Onwards!

Andrew & Bin

#DialogueWins
#TransparencyWins
#DoTheRightThing

Love is ________

EDITOR'S NOTE: Hello everyone, Andrew and Bin here. As two cisgendered males (we're still learning all the terminology so please bear with us!), we knew we couldn't be the ones to write about LGBTQ or Pride. But - to us Pride is about inviting dialogue, bridging opinions and most importantly, creating a space where everyone feels accepted and heard. It’s why we wanted to approach this year not through our own voice, but rather through the voice of our employees. We’ve interviewed a few of our bobaristas on their feelings around Pride, what could improve, and most importantly, what love means to them.

We’ll start with this: What’s currently wrong with “Pride”? What do you feel is missing?

Millie Khou (MK): What’s missing is the information people don’t know, the history, and the reason why Pride month exists. Pride meant celebrating who you are, being proud, and gathering with a community that one day, won’t have to come out of a closet anymore. A lot of straight/cis people miss the point: it isn’t just a time to get intoxicated or naked. Don’t celebrate yourself, celebrate your LGBTQ friends and be the ally they need. Don’t treat Pride like Valentine’s Day for your friends; care about and love them every day.

Andy Sagal (AS): I think the two major components that bother me are consumerism and ironically, exclusivity. Companies are putting their nose in “Pride” to make money, or to pretend that they care when they really don’t. Also, you need to pay to enter some Pride parades. It shouldn’t cost money. It’s not a festival. If cities or companies wanted to donate the profits that would be fine - but a mandatory fee is destructive. It’s not like all members of the LGBTQ community have money. Finally, it’s important that there is a month - but for people outside of the LGBTQ community, it limits their scope. People only use this month to party, and once the months is over, they “move on to something else”. People need to be more conscious of it year-round.

Wen Neale (WN): While I never attended “Pride”, from observing others first-hand experiences it seems pride has become a giant corporative festival. There’s no acknowledgment of the monumental achievements made by trans women of colour, and it’s more focused on people who aren’t involved in the community wanting to party than realizing why we have pride in the first place.

Griffin Moskowitz (GM): I think that unfortunately, people outside the community are showing up for the wrong reasons. What does it mean to be an ally? If you are not a member of the community, why are you showing up? These are vital questions to unpack within yourself. Pride parades are commercialized, sexualized, capitalized upon, and heavily policed; which is a great irony. The Pride we have today only exists because black trans women and drag queens rioted against police. They were revolutionaries, but our community has glossed over their history in so many ways. We are missing our history.

Lily Jones (LJ): The SF Bay Area has always been the forefront of the battle for LGBTQ rights and I'm disappointed that big companies such as Target still sell 'Love Is Love' merchandise when for at least this metro area, the real conversation has moved onward. Same-sex marriage is legal and anyone visiting San Francisco probably knows it as some equivalent as the gay capital of the United States. Now that same-sex couples can marry and be further recognized as legitimate by our mainstream society, Pride events need to turn the limelight to trans, gender non-conforming, and nonbinary gender issues. Additionally, this previous focus on romantic and sexual love, although easy to sell, effectively tells queer people the same message that Hollywood's been peddling for eons: happiness is only found with a romantic partner.

I love the idea of a Pride event, but in my opinion if you've been to the Sunday SF parade once, that's enough. I've found smaller, less party-oriented events that have been just as fun (shoutout to Concord Pride and the Rainbow Community Center) and focused more on community than getting drunk and selling overpriced festival food.

What makes you proud to be who you are?

MK: I wasn’t proud of myself for a long time because I didn’t know how to find others that were like me. I’m proud of myself because I found a community to confide in and reasons not to feel scared anymore. Being attracted to people not based on their gender identity was confusing to understand, but as I learned to understand what that meant to me and to others, I was proud to find the missing piece of me I couldn’t define for so long.

WN: I’m proud to be who I am because I want to show people that despite all the odds against you, you can find happiness for being you.

GM: What makes me most proud is how much my appearance has changed in the last few years. In the near 100 degree heat of our Union Square store, I wore a full face of makeup to work every day when I first started, sometimes hastily applying it in the bathroom before my shift if I was running late. Wearing makeup is a fun form of art and expression, but being afraid to face the world without it was like being a prisoner behind a mask I was losing control over. I was performing an elevated appearance I thought the world expected of me, but with some work, I’ve become more comfortable in my skin.

AS: Even from a young age, not been afraid of having my own thoughts and saying them in my own manner. It’s giving importance to who I am and my thoughts. How genuine is everything outside of you, if you are not genuine within yourself, first. Without self-appreciation and/or self-affirmation, nothing else can hold meaning. So I am most proud of being me.

Why is it important to love yourself?

GM: Self-love is complex: it’s not linear or binary, but a process of constant evolution. I’ve found at times when self-love has been challenging and I don’t love myself, I’m a worse person. A worse friend, a worse employee, and it’s a cyclical trap that’s too easy to fall into. Who are you? What are you ashamed of? What do you want to change? The times when I practice embracing my insecurities are my happiest. Be honest and kind to yourself, the world will thank you.

MK: Before anyone tells you that they're accepting of you, you're never going to believe a word they say until you see yourself as a whole. Every piece and experience makes you the person you are; no one’s appreciation of you will mean more than the way you appreciate yourself.

WN: It’s important to love yourself not just for the sake of yourself, but for the relationships you have as well. My own depiction on ‘loving yourself’ is being confident in the choices you make, knowing your worth to reduce people taking advantage of you, and allowing yourself to fully express emotions that society tends to want you to ‘bottle up’.

AS: It’s important because a lot of times we are the only person who can. If you aren’t able to love yourself, you will most likely seek out validation in ways that are toxic. And if you can’t recognize toxic love (because you don’t have a standard), you’ll be content in toxicity. You will take whatever you can get. You’ll have a loss of worth and you won’t recognize it. You wont know how to say no to situations that arent healthy for you. Self-love is important because it’s your high standard of self-respect.

What does love mean to you?

MK: Love is palpable and once you feel it, it's something you would want for everyone. Love is something that’s not limited to any “type” of person; it’s something that everyone deserves. Love is terribly confusing, but everything makes sense once you feel it.

WN: To me, love means a freedom of expression and an unwavering amount of trust.

How do you feel your community strengthens you?

MK: The moment anyone doesn’t feel alone anymore is a step in the right direction. My community gave me the confidence to be accepting of myself and reinforced the idea in me that there is nothing wrong with me. This community and the Hardcore/Punk scene have been so accepting; learning that every norm I knew before is not meant for everyone made me a stronger person.

WN: Being involved in the art community, there’s many LGBTQ+ members in it. My community has helped me figure out my own identity and sexuality, and provides me never-ending support in my hobbies and work. The consistent support and reassurance has made me develop into a person who isn’t scared to show vulnerability anymore.

LJ: My community strengthens me with its diversity! I fortunately had a great Queer Straight Alliance at my former community college and the regular members all came from many different backgrounds, walks of life, and perspectives which helped us all consider how racism and capitalism affects the queer community. Additionally, my friends do not shy away from speaking up about what's important to them, and I feel that pride is about the absence of fear.

What does family mean to you?

GM: Family can be a sore spot for many queer people. I am very fortunate to have siblings and parents who love me, but they haven’t always been the most openly supportive of my choices. But we get to choose our families, too. For me the word includes, but is never restricted to blood. In my time at Boba Guys, I’ve met a handful of people I love like brothers and sisters (or grandpa and grandma), and I’ll always remember the Union Square store as a place that supported me as I grew up.

What would you tell your younger self?

AS: To never lose independence. I gained that at a very young age - there was no one there to give me what I needed or to teach me how to get it, and if I hadn’t experienced that, I would have grown up in a very different way. I had to get a job at 13 because my parents couldnt buy me clothes. And some people could grow bitter from that, but it made me stronger. So I’d tell myself to never lose that drive.

MK: You’re gonna make it past 16, 18, and 21. You’re going to meet people that encourage you to be better. You’re going to make sense of this and you’re gonna find someone just like you who will love you for longer than you could have imagined. It’s gonna be okay.

WN: I would tell my younger self that my identity won’t get in the way (and should never get in the way) of achieving success and happiness, and that if anything, my identity is what propelled me into improving my work ethic and myself as a person. Also, to not try so hard into fitting into society’s standards on people with the same identity as me, in the end it’s what makes you happy not others.

GM: Although it might sound cliché, I would tell myself everything will be OK! There are countless people just like you, and there is a whole world full of acceptance and love whenever you’re ready to reach for it. Also never download an app called Grindr when it comes out. Or Tinder. Or Jack’d.

Fill in the blank: Love is _________

WN: Love is Freedom

AS: Love is inter-dimensional

MK: Love is tender

Our MAGA Hat Stance

Hi all,

We want to be transparent and put out an official statement regarding the Kenji story. Here is one of the better pieces on the breaking news:

Bay Area Restaurant’s MAGA Hat Ban Not to Everyone’s Taste

Given our outspoken stance on social issues, numerous media outlets (and some of our team) reached out to us for some soundbites and direction.

We will instead give our full stance... or as much as we can succinctly put in writing. And none of this is a slight to Kenji or anyone else in the industry with a similar stance. We support their business decisions as it’s their business. We are huge Kenji fans given we are all from the Bay Area. We just know whatever we say will be passed onto our team— and that’s the real impetus for this statement.

Let’s cut to the chase: our mission is to bridge cultures, so anything that builds walls isn’t our cup of tea. We are steadfast in our mission.

As we wrote before, we believe in empathy-driven methods like South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which strives to create dialogue first. We relate more to Professor X, MLK, and T’Challa than to their counterparts. We strive for openness, reconciliation, and understanding before all else. And we know some may disagree, but that would only prove our point. If you punish us for this stance, then we never had dialogue in the first place.

That being said, few things carry as much loaded baggage as a MAGA hat nowadays, so the person has to know what’s coming. We can’t control outcomes based on short-sighted personal choices. It’s like wearing a Dodgers jersey to a Giants game— you are asking for it... on a whole other level. You do reap what you sow.

We always say that “dialogue wins.” It’s the only way to start the healing process that we are desperately in need of, so we will say on record for the first and last time: if someone with a MAGA hat comes in, we would serve them a huge dose of love and acceptance in addition to our boba. Now, if they display behavior like saying coded threats or showing signs of escalation and don't want dialogue, we will gladly show them the door. Btw, we support an audience clapping on the way out as it’ll make our security footage much more entertaining!

Dialogue has to go both ways. If someone simply makes a purchase and doesn't cause trouble, we believe our ability to bridge cultures will make a bigger impact down the road. The MAGA hat wearer should already know we are Progressives given our ethos, locations, and content, so we don’t need to shove it down their throats. High road, long game.

In the end, we have to learn that it’s all contextual and nuanced— something we, as a society, forgot along the way. We probably don’t have many MAGA-supporting customers, but if you are one and happen to be reading this, know that we don’t see eye to eye and prioritize a different set of values. But if you still come in knowing all that, we will gladly serve you. Our balls taste like magic.

And if we ever come into your turf wearing our Boba Guys Pride or “Progress, Not Perfection” shirts, we expect the same treatment. If not, all bets are off. Professor X and T’Challa have special powers, too.

Onwards,

The Boba Guys

—

Special thanks to a couple friends who encouraged me (Andrew) to be bold with our mission. We originally wanted to sit this one out but y’all know we can’t do that. 😬🖤

“It’s not just the Empire that knows how to crucify.” - Jason Chu

It's a Small, Big World

You’re reading this because you want to learn more about our new cups! Thank you for the interest! So here it goes…

Two years ago, we wrote this blog post as a reflection on bridging cultures. Two weeks ago, we followed that up with another post about our thoughts on midterms. You’ll notice that a running theme is our fascination with culture.

Over the last year, we’ve been exploring ideas on how to codify our mission to bridge cultures—both for the public and internally. The plastic straw ban and local manufacturing (i.e. US Boba Company) are the first two big ideas out of our newfound resolve. Each initiative took at least a year, but we’re making tremendous progress. It’s given us more courage to tackle something we’ve been toying with for the past few years…

It’s a Small, Big World

Growing up, Bin and I (Andrew) both had a silly obsession with culture. Perhaps is it because both of us grew up as immigrant kids in non-Asian neighborhoods. Maybe it’s due to our music and film taste—all of which leans toward more cerebral topics like sociology and anthropology. Whatever the reason, we loved seeing people with overt differences come together and build a community.

Years ago, we both talked about our admiration for the “It’s a Small World” ride in Disneyland. It’s a ballsy experiment. The ride has been criticized a lot for stereotyping and over-generalizing ethnic garb and traditions. We’ve read all the criticism. While our idea has been shelved for years, we simply couldn’t shake the vision.

Last year, we asked our team to create the first cup that tries to explicitly bridge cultures. We chose cups as the medium because we serve over 4,000,000 drinks a year. Go big or go home, as they say!

It was just a design exercise at first, but we knew where we wanted to take it. We weighed out the implications that could come from a project like this, but as we’ve been saying all along… it’s about progress, not perfection.

Our Inspiration

In our exploration for the cup design, we knew other businesses like Starbucks tried to make statements with their business. When the #RaceTogether campaign came out, Bin and I dissected the campaign and asked ourselves what we would do if the choice was ours. We still keep tabs on the Starbucks’ “Holiday” cups discussion. Whether we like it or not, our belief is that businesses nowadays are inherently political or socially-conscious. We’ve always embraced it. What a company or person stands for is as important as what they make or do.

The question wasn’t what can we draw on a cup. It’s what do we want to draw on a cup. Zodi, our in-house designer, started the exploration with our internal team. At first, it was a Holiday-only seasonal design, so most of the concepts had a Holiday feel to it. But as we saw each iteration, we decided that if we were to do a limited-run cup, it’d make a statement. We wanted it to be timeless.

Some of you are already asking, why did you have to put faces on the cup? That part is easy. It’s about connecting people. We had ideas to draw various cultural symbols or city landscapes, like San Francokyo in Big Hero 6. It didn’t appeal to us. It’s been done. With all that’s going on in the world, we decided to tackle it the hard way—and that meant using real representations of our community.

The Hard Part

So we chose to use human representations of what it means to bridge cultures. After all, we always tell our team in our orientations, “Boba Guys is a place for EVERYONE.”

This is when it got hard and we almost pulled the project. The conversation even got heated within our internal team. How do you represent everyone on a cup that only fits 12-20 faces? When is it a caricature vs. a symbol? How many permutations of hair styles and face shapes can we combine? How can you draw universality without compromising individuality?

What inspired similar yet distinct faces was the idea that although different, at the end of the day we are all the same. We are all just people. We like what Everlane did with their 100% Human campaign. It was the same core message.

It’s Now for Real Real

This post is written before the cup launches in stores, so we’re not sure how the public will react to it. But we know one question will come up over and over again, so we’ll address it now: Do we wish that we could create a representation of every single person and race so that no one feels excluded?

Yes, but representation is like chasing the sun. We all want it, but we can only get so close. This single design alone took months. We didn’t have to do it. And maybe we’ll learn that it was a mistake. But we are trying. This was an exercise not just for the public, but also for our internal team. At the end of the day, we’re responsible for 300+ team members, most of whom are quite impressionable. We want them to see that it’s about progress, not perfection. We want them to see us try— and maybe, fail.

We know from our experience with the Crazy Rich Asians campaign that #RepresentationMatters, but it is also gradual and incremental. This is not the last time we’ll attempt something so ambitious. We’ll learn and adjust. That’s what we’ve always done.

So after of months of iterations, the design you see going live is our best shot. We did adhere to some parameters along the way: we removed some colors due to cost and added more explicit representations of our community based on the feedback.

In the end, we just want little kids who come to our shops to identify with at least one of the faces on the cup. It creates a sense of belonging and inclusiveness that begets a strong community. Through community, you create dialogue. And through dialogue, you finally get to bridge cultures.

So that’s the story of our cups. Whew, a lot of backstory for simple cups, right? Let’s just enjoy the cute little faces now! ;)

Happy holidays!

Andrew & Bin

Progress, Not Perfection

Go Vote!

Hi Boba Guys and Gals,

A lot of you asked about how we’re addressing the election both internally and externally, so below is an internal email that we sent our team which outlines our plans. For the public, you’ll see us participate by giving out our own version of “I Voted” pins. We know it’s not for everyone, but we hope you understand where we’re coming from.

Thank you all so much for the support. We hope we can all figure out a way to work together and reconcile our differences (over a cup of boba). ;)

Progress, not perfection.

-Andrew & Bin

---

Hi team,

*mic tap* Is this thing on?

Great seeing all of you, especially NY and LA in the last week. As noted in our talks, here's the big email...

The Election and What We're Doing

We want to update you all on what we’re doing as a company for the upcoming midterm election. For background, we encourage you all to read this post from two years ago. It captures our overarching sentiment about our involvement with society and still rings true today. That being said, we recognize that our world fundamentally changed since that post.

At Boba Guys, we are active participants in the community. We won’t always make the right or popular call, but we also do not sit on the sidelines. For this upcoming November election, we are doing two things:

1. Every team member that votes will receive an hour’s worth of compensation in the new pay period. We’ve heard of companies compensating their employees for things like volunteering, but few do it for voting. We hope people follow our lead. We want you all to know how important this is for our company and society. Civic engagement is bridging cultures in action.
   

2. Every guest that comes into our store on Election Day (Nov 6th) and shows proof that they voted (usually an “I Voted” sticker) will receive one of our limited-edition buttons.

Note: We know that not everyone on our team (or even in the public) can vote. We’re sorry. We can’t do anything about that, but we hope that you can support us in building a culture of participation which is just as important as participating itself.

Okay. That’s the easy part. The hard part is about to come…

Progress, Not Perfection

You’ll notice that the free buttons we’re creating contain a phrase, “Progress, not perfection.” I want you all to understand why we chose to use this phrase. And let it be known, I completely stole this from my Soul Cycle instructor who uses it in her classes. 

Our mission is to bridge cultures and our default mode of engagement is through civil discourse. We want to extra clear that it is not the only way to engage in what’s going on, but it is the style that most aligns with our values. Like for our drinks, if someone doesn’t like boba, we don’t put them on the defensive and say, “How dare you say you don’t like squishy balls in your mouth?” 

What We are Trying to Do

If it isn’t obvious by now, we are in the process of building an ecosystem of empathy, grace, and positivity. You can tell by the brands and people we associate with. We believe our approach is the only way we break down this viscous cycle of distrust and cynicism. No one wins when we shame or disgrace the other side. No one.

That is why “progress, not perfection” best reflects our approach to civic duty. If you’re wondering why we even went to this level of specificity, it’s simple: we have a platform, especially with the youth (and young at heart!).

Over the years, we’ve covered a variety of topics— straw ban, local manufacturing, #MeToo, and even immigration with all our work in the government. It's even led to some of you on the team and the public demanding action when we stay silent. That’s fair. We own that.

So we’ll try to live up to our reputation. It helps that we have over 2,000,000 unique people that pass through our doors every year. It’s also why those Flavorbooks are so important as people learn our values while they wait in our long ass lines. Thanks for pushing us to stay on top of our values, so please understand “Progress, not perfection” is our attempt to embed those values in our ecosystem.

What "Progress, Not Perfection" Means

I recently came across this amazing study that talks about the polarization of our country. I put it here on Dropbox so you can all read it. On a high level, it segments our political climate into seven factions or “tribes.”

I’m not going to steer any of you toward a specific “tribe” as stated in the study. Most of you know where we fall in the tribes based on the posts and interviews. We’ve been pretty vocal while being in the public eye, so we’ll leave it at that. 

The goal is to implore you, our team, to understand that there is a big, big world around you—and we need to empathize where others who disagree with you are coming from. It starts with empathy. Empathy creates reconciliation. And reconciliation ultimately leads to a more stable equilibrium. This formula is the basis of our upcoming book. It’s the key to bridging cultures.

In most cases, progress doesn’t look like what we all imagined it to be. It rarely does. But we’ll bring it back to what we know: making boba milk tea. 

If we got defensive and snapped back at every competitor, vendor, or troll that threw shade at us, we’d still be in this death spiral. In the early days, we did a lot things wrong like using slow processes, bad vendors, or poor training procedures. Some of you recall that we even received hatemail and personal attacks. But you and the public were all gracious enough to look beyond our flaws. And right now, we still have a lot of things to work on, but you’re still here. You believe it’s about progress, not perfection. That's how it's supposed to work.

So Now What?

"Progress, Not Perfection" is the mindset we want you and the public to adopt more of. Based on the study, we know that up to 20% of you might still be on the extreme ends and vehemently disagree with our approach. That’s fine. We ask that you engage in dialogue instead of stonewalling. Otherwise, you’ll only be working for and associating with a very, very small segment of society. 

Some might think we’re too centrist or diplomatic, when we tend to avoid being too extreme or polarizing. It’s okay. Let’s figure it out how to coexist together.

Lastly, I'm writing this because the fans and guests will ask why and how we're getting involved. You're all on the front lines, so you'll need to explain it on our behalf. Your roommates and significant others might also wonder why we went the extra mile and decided to put a tagline on our election support. It all comes back to bridging cultures. We don't mind taking the heat-- progress, not perfection.

Have a nice day and a pleasant tomorrow.

Andrew & Bin 

Continuing the Movement

We made history this weekend with Crazy Rich Asians and want to keep the momentum moving!

#GoldOpen has always been about representation, so we are expanding our efforts and supporting two new chapters in the movement:

1. Searching with John Cho and directed by Aneesh Chaganty
2. BlacKkKlansman by Spike Lee.

The first set of buyouts start this Friday in collaboration with A3 Foundation.

Support for John’s movie goes without saying. John is an icon and helped lay the fertile soil that allowed Crazy Rich Asians to sprout from. He, Aneesh, and team put together an amazing, innovative film that currently sits at 86% on the Tomato Meter.

About BlacKKKlansman

The #GoldOpen support of BlacKKKlansman is simply something we’ve always wanted to do from the beginning: to bridge cultures. And we are well-aware of some the recent feedback between our communities.

Following the lead of Lena Waithe, Barry Jenkins, and Ava DuVernay, we understand that while we can’t build a bridge overnight, we can start brick by brick. As my SoulCycle instructor said today, “It’s about progress, not perfection.” 😜

But to be candid, some of us organizing for #GoldOpen don’t know how to approach it, so we’ve been working with leaders in the African American community to make sure it’s in the spirit of collaboration and empathy. For example, which movie do we get behind? And why would some of us use our resources in this manner? Shouldn’t we channel our efforts behind the next big AAPI film?

As we have been saying, “high tides raise all boats.” We are changing the tide. As a lower-middle class kid from a tough part of Jersey, I have been transformed by Spike Lee’s work— in my office sits an autographed street sign from Spike Lee’s “Do The Right Thing,” signed by Spike himself. #DoTheRightThing is a hashtag we’ve been using for over seven years, so the latest Spike Lee joint and film / source material spoke to us.

For others, it is about the big picture. We know there are a ton of other AAPI projects to support, but the same could have been said about Barry, Lena, and Ava’s co-sign of Crazy Rich Asians. In the end, it’s about building a culture of inclusion and empathy.

We don’t represent every AAPI in the U.S., but we do have a mini-platform. A few buyouts alone won’t solve everything, but it might inspire others in our community to deepen the cultural dialogue by laying down a small foundation of empathy and curiosity. This is not a token gesture. This is a small, albeit important, brick on a new house that we are all building together.

To learn more about the #GoldOpen buyouts, you can join our private FB page:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/goldopen

If you are in SF, the first BlacKKKlansman buyout is this Friday at 6pm. Until then, keep supporting Crazy Rich Asians and the slew of upcoming films in the wake the Movement.

- A3 + Boba Guys

Crazy Whole, Rich Asian Americans

 “A single tree does not make a forest; a single string cannot make music.” - old Chinese proverb

There is little left to contribute to the dialogue around Crazy Rich Asians that hasn’t already been said. The coverage and discourse has been more than the community could ever ask for. It’s a movement. It’s a throwback to the RomComs of yesteryear. And most notably, it’s a symbol of a changing tide in representation in media. That being said, we’ve been getting questions from both our fans and team about how and why we’re supporting the movie so openly. A friend said, “It’s about Asian pride, right?”

We’re in the food business, so we try not to overreach and stay in our lane. In our world, we had amazing trailblazers Iike Eddie Huang, David Chang, and Roy Choi pave the way for our current American gastronomic rennaissance. Even our success with Boba Guys or Sunday at the Museum is built on the backs of the generation before us. Before we introduced our chapter of American-style boba, our forefathers (and mothers) did it with the gua bao, ramen, and kalbi tacos. Boba Guys has always been a pipe dream, so to change an entire industry— much less be writing a whole book about it— is a privilege. We’ve always said the food world has one of the better platforms for representation— food, at its core, is democratic. Channelling my best Bourdain, “There is nothing more political than food.” Our commentary is about culture.

I remember watching Crazy Rich Asians for the first time on the big screen earlier this year. I was sitting among peers and the cast, wondering, “How the f*ck did we get here?” As soon as the title card appeared, I knew something special was in the air. I could hear it in the cheers. I picked up the chuckles after nuanced musical references. And I felt it during the food porn scenes. Brother Jon M. Chu, the cast, and the bold team at Warner Bros hit a home run. 

It wasn’t that we never felt it during years of Jackie Chan, Margaret Cho, Kelly Hu, Harold & Kumar, Crouching Tiger, and uh... Memoirs of a— never mind. Even with Master of None and The Big Sick, I still felt something was missing. That’s not a knock on any of the strides made thus far— unlike in food or in fashion, the representation hasn’t permeated culture to the same degree. And I know this is heading toward a conversation about White Worship or Columbus’ing, but I am just speaking to Bin and my experience— as Asian American kids growing up in Texas and New Jersey, I didn’t feel fully represented. There were some moments, but it was fleeting. I didn’t feel whole. (You don’t ever feel whole when you wonder when it will end.)

I think it’s like when someone went to my family’s old restaurant in New Jersey and ordered chicken chow mein. I mean, you come to Hunan Palace, the pinnacle of Chinese cuisine in Woodbridge, New Jersey and all you order is chicken chow mein?! Here’s the issue: it’s a two-sided problem as my business school professors would say. On the demand side, the residents of our small town didn’t understand terms like duck sauce or bok choy (remember, this is the late 80s), so they stuck to what they knew. And my parents, immigrants from China and Taiwan, only translated and offered what they knew how to make. Neither side could fully understand each other and there wasn’t a product that was equally accessible and available at the same time. The ground-breaking, culinary achievements of General Tso’s chicken had not yet reached Yan Can Cook heights yet. Note: did Martin Yan come before or after General Tso? It’s all hazy but that’s the point.

I’m going to get some internet flack for this, but stick with me— Crazy Rich Asians is like a fully-realized, whole Asian food concept. It’s not chicken chow mein. It hits our cultural core but is also enveloped in pretty packaging. It isn’t a Panda Express. (Sorry. Though, I love my Orange Chicken and Cheese Rangoons.) It makes us feel whole. It’s probably why the community is rallying around it. It’s like when McDonald’s goes overseas and you eat a burger, milkshake, and fries in front of Jing’an Temple in Shanghai. It’s a solid cross-section of American culture. Sure, McDonald’s has some local items like Japanese rice cheese balls or Haupia pie in Hawaii, but it’s essentially a fully-baked cultural concept inside another culture. Like a Tur-Duck-En of culture. That’s Crazy Rich Asians.

We do these movie nights at Boba Guys where we buy out theaters for our team to celebrate our hard work. I remember two recent movies in particular that stood out, Coco and Black Panther. It’s true that us in the organizing community have read and admired the passion about Black Panther. I can’t speak for each ethnic population, but I know it meant something visceral to some members of our team. I could see it in their eyes or hear it in their tears. As Awkwafina put it, “... that is the power of representation.”

Over the past few months, we’ve helped organize 5+ screenings across the country. I myself have seen the movie four times and have cried every single time. It’s that good. I rank it up there with two other classics: Serendipity and You’ve Got Mail. You may think RomComs are sappy or dated, but given our society’s tone at the moment, we all could use an injection of optimism. Or just watch CRA for a front row seat to an emerging cultural war between US and China— a topic which we’ll surely cover in our book. ;)

Lastly, as I wrote in this post about AAPI Heritage Month, “As a history buff, I often see how one group’s rise to power often comes at another’s expense... both realized and unrealized.” This isn’t about power or pride or a tug-of-war between two cultures. And this post isn’t just for the underrepresented Asians in media.

Today, it is Crazy Rich Asians, because that’s a visible domain and serves as a proxy for culture. If your CRA isn’t your story today, there will be one for you tomorrow. Later, it will be in the domain of education and schools, in which another segment of the population is underrepresented. Then maybe politics. And after that, it will be members of another marginalized group— anyone that never felt treated as a “whole.” That is an idea that goes beyond being Asian or American. It’s universal.

If you aren’t Asian, I invite you to join us on a path to bridging cultures. Yes, this movie is a chance in which we share our culture in the wrapping of a gorgeous RomCom. We hope we are good hosts as you venture into our world. In return, we hope you invite us to your iconic films, tastings, and events and maybe we can learn from each other. Whether it’s rich and poor, urban and rural, or techies and hipsters, we know the first step toward understanding others is to travel within another culture.

Thank you all for the love and support that allows us to continue pushing toward progress.

Onwards,

Andrew & Bin

p.s. Again, major kudos to Warner Bros, Jonathan M. Chu, and fellow publishing peer Kevin Kwan (go Random House!) for believing in telling whole, rich stories across cultures. You guys deserve all the credit for bringing this project to life. 

We Still Kinda Suck

This is a follow-up post to our original post in May. 

14,000,605 Possible Outcomes

We are here sitting in a hotel room in Taichung, Taiwan in middle of writing our book about bridging cultures. Over the last week, there has been an unbelievably cynical strain of criticism that is sweeping the nation over the now-passed SF straw ban. Friends, family, and fans all over the world are showing us articles and comments about us. Everyone knows we give zero fucks about short-sighted people. But we do care about our community (including our team members across the country) and how to equip them with a way to fulfill our #dialoguewins goal. This post is for you.

We don’t want to re-hash our original post. We stand by every word we said. And yes, the most recent SF Chronicle article sheds light on some of the backstory of our search for a viable straw replacement. The new ordinance in SF will go into effect on July 1, 2019. That gives us about a year to find our solution.  

As of right now, we are likely going with paper straws. We’ve already shared that with the public on Instagram Stories two weeks ago. We hope to also subsidize that with some reusable solutions like metal or alternative material straws that you can purchase at our stores very soon. (An hour from where we are right now in Taiwan, there is a supplier that makes straws out of sugar cane... it’s pretty f*cking amazing.) Many of you know we’ve been looking into this for over a year. We saw these bans coming. We pride ourselves on being pretty globally-minded, so we got wind of cities and countries like Taiwan proposing a ban from pretty early on.

The issue we have right now is the astonishing amount of criticism coming from the anti-straw ban movement, especially from those who don’t do their homework. We get that there are a million issues to solve as our world is a f*cked up place. Yes, maybe the straw ban won’t materially impact the amount of plastic we consume. And yes, we should still dedicate more resources to the homeless. The world is conflating all the issues and we need to stop that sh*t. My old business school professors used to scold me when I confused strategy and tactics. Years later, I now know what it feels like!

We’re just really good at complaining. If you know us or work for us, you know we f*cking HATE whiners. Like allergic. Nothing gets done with whining. And those people laughing at us or saying how foolish we are... let them laugh. Just take it. Don’t retaliate or trade blow for blow. That is not the Boba Guys way. We have ALWAYS been on the right side of history. Most of you know I am a die-hard Hamilton: The Musical fan. One of my favorite lines is, “History has its eyes on you.” It’s true. We can’t forget that.

To bring back some Professor Frank Schultz, I will talk strategy. This straw ban is about two things: 

1) Changing consumer behavior about straws

2) Reducing the amount of ocean plastic that harms marine life

#1 is obviously working because everyone and their mother is talking about it. Starbucks also joined the cause, so that’s that. Mission accomplished.

#2 is what people forget. The small plastics that get into our ocean do truly harm marine life. We already got rid of microplastics like those tiny beads that used to be in our soap. If someone thinks the straw ban won’t help the marine waste situation, they’re probably also a climate change denier— and we’re not down with that. We’re pretty patient with people, but we’re also allergic to ignorance. We got more problems to fix than convince them of the basics. 

For the record, politically, Bin and I are both centrists. We work with both sides of local and federal governments on a variety of issues, so it should be clear that we’re not extremists. (Some would say we are SOLIFICOs, if you know what that means.) That being said, we do think it’s irresponsible to say that rules and regulations are bad. It’s how the anti-straw ban comes off. While it might not be their intention, the vitriol and viligence in that community is extreme. As a former marketer, I am drawn to public perception. I can tell you it comes off as “Don’t take away our guns. Don’t take away our straws!” We do not endorse this rhetoric.

However good the intentions are, you don’t win any arguments by attacking people... especially us. Again, Bin and I could care less. We’ve been in the public eye for seven years. We’ve learned to understand how media and public commentary works. But as families, friends, and fans who are associated with us, we understand it might put you in an awkward position to some of your peers who ascribe to this myopic mentality. Our best recommendation is to point people to a common goal. 

Rules and regulations are goal-agnostic. Some rules work, some don’t. It’s not black and white. Some bans have worked in the past and some haven’t. The larger concern is that we as a society, especially Americans, rarely have a big picture mindset. If you know your history or read more about what happens in the world around you, it should be obvious that this ban is likely on the right side of history. We’re not banning silly things like shoes or contact lenses. We’re banning straws of which there are many suitable replacements. Yes, those solutions aren’t readily available just yet, but we’ll get there. That’s why we hate cynicism. We prefer to be optimistic about it. Being cynical gets you nowhere.

The city obviously knows about the supply issue. We warned them about it a month ago. We even told them our stance when SF Chronicle reached out to us. One of the reasons we even informed a large part of the SF Chronicle is to hold the city and SF Environment accountable. In this particular case, they understand the big picture and the impact of supply on small businesses. We are here to balance both sides. Focus on the goal and tackle the tactics one by one. 

The best way to describe what’s happening is at the end of Infinity War. *spoilers ahead* We love our memes and one of our favorites is when Doctor Strange explains to Tony that “there was no other way.” Out of 14 million plus possibilities, this is the only way. It doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy. It doesn’t mean there won’t be casualties, but this is what we think is our best path toward progress. Blame us for helping wipe out half the population in the universe— or just wait and see what happens in Infinity War 2. ;) We’re hopeful that it’ll be all right in the long run. 

Keep on sucking. 

 -Andrew & Bin

How to Practice LGBTQ Allyship

EDITOR'S NOTE: Hello everyone, Andrew and Bin here. As two cisgendered males (we're still learning all the terminology so please bear with us!), we knew we couldn't be the ones to write about LGBTQ issues but we acknowledged there was a lot to learn and understand about the LGBTQ community, and we're all about bridging cultures at Boba Guys. Two months ago at a shift lead meeting in New York, we were presented with the idea of doing staff trainings to educate our own staff on how to become an LGBTQ ally by Mars, one of our awesome bobaristas. They work at our Canal Street Market location. We were excited about the initiative and have started to roll it out in our stores, to the benefit of both our staff but also those that stop by our shops. We've gotten permission to share this publicly for everyone's benefit, whether you're a business owner like ourselves and would like to introduce similar training and dialog in your business or if you just want to be more informed about LGBTQ issues. Thanks again to Mars, Jae, Liana and everyone else that helped write this article.

It’s Pride. What does that mean for you? Maybe you are going to attend Dance on the Pier, now called Pride Island, in New York. Maybe you will be marching down Market Street in the San Francisco Pride Parade. Or maybe you will go to your local Pride events wherever you are in the world. Regardless of what you do during Pride, for LGBTQ folks it’s about celebration, community, and being fabulous.

With the widening acceptance of LGBTQ people and policy, there are more allies than ever in the world, but “ally” is not an identity. Anyone who has delved deeper into activism will tell you that allyship is an active practice. For many people, their first action is self-education. If you are new to the world of active allyship, you may not know where to even start your education process. That’s why your we’re here to help.

In this article you will learn the basics of identity, the transgender umbrella, and what coming out means. A lot of this information may be new to you and possibly overwhelming. Since you are just starting your active allyship journey, you will make mistakes, and that’s okay! Mistakes happen because you are trying and putting in the effort is the only way to becoming a better and more informed person.

Let’s start with the following diagram:

This diagram introduces four terms that make up a person’s identity: gender expression, gender identity, attraction, and sex.

The dotted line enveloping the Genderbread Person on the outside is gender expression. Gender expression is how you present yourself to the world through clothes, interactions, and behaviors. This can be anywhere on a scale from feminine to masculine. It can even be a combination of both.

Next we have gender identity. This is how you, and only you, define your gender. It’s based on how you feel you align or don’t align with what you understand to be the options for gender (usually it’s just option A: girl or option B: boy). As you can see on the diagram, this scale can also be separated into two: from non-gendered to woman-ness or man-ness.

Following gender identity, there’s attraction which can be separated into sexual attraction and romantic attraction. Attraction is who you are physically, spiritually, or emotionally attracted to, or not. This ranges from asexual (no sexual attraction) to men only or women only. It also ranges from aromantic (no romantic attraction) to men only or women only.

Lastly, there is your sex. Sex is objectively defined by the physical characteristics you’re born with or develop, including genitalia, body shape, voice pitch, hormones, chromosomes, and more. When you are born, this is what the doctor, or doula or whoever is delivering you, labels you as when they first see you.

Sometimes assigning a sex can get complicated for intersex babies. According to the Intersex Society of North America, “Intersex is a general term used for a variety of conditions in which a person is born with a reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn’t seem to fit the typical definitions of female or male.” Usually sex is only determined by genitalia at birth which is why some intersex people don’t find out their intersex status until later in life.

All of these things can be combined in an infinite number of ways. For example, you can be a biological male who identifies as genderqueer, presents as feminine, and is sexually attracted to no one. Another example is you can be a biological female who identifies as a transgender man, presents femme, and is attracted to femininity. An important thing to keep in mind is that you shouldn’t assume what someone identifies as based on one or two physical characteristics. 

Onto gender:

Since you’re probably on your way to get some ice cold boba, I’ll only highlight two terms from the above infographic: transgender and cisgender.

Transgender is an umbrella term to describe those whose gender identities differ from their sex designated at birth. Sometimes you’ll see trans or trans* which are variants of the word transgender.

The term cisgender or cis means a person who identifies with the sex they were designated at birth. This term was created so that being transgender wouldn’t be a synonym for abnormal. In fact, cisgender originated from the transgender community. The prefix “cis” means “on the same side of” and the prefix “trans” means “across.” Trans people come in all shades, shapes, and sizes and since our community experiences increased rates of harassment and poverty, there are a lot of us who aren’t so willing to come out. In order to create safer spaces for the trans and other LGBTQ people around you consider these do’s and don’ts:

DO:

• Incorporate gender inclusive language into your everyday life. Instead of saying “you guys”, “ladies,” etc. use: “excuse me, folks,” “hello, everyone,” and “have a good night, friends”

• Make a habit of asking everyone for their preferred pronouns. You can do this at the start of a business or extracurricular club meeting, book club, a social gathering at your local Boba Guys location, or wherever you’re meeting someone new. It is especially important for cisgender people to do this so that this process can become normalized. To help you with making this happen in your life, here’s a little script to follow: Hi my name is John. I use he/him pronouns. What are yours?

• Affirm a person’s identity by using their preferred name. Some trans people may choose to continue using their birth name, also referred to as legal name or dead name. Others may decide to change their name. This change may not be reflected on paper so if you are taking a person’s Boba Guys order or are in charge of someone’s employment paperwork, just two of many applicable scenarios, ask if the person has a preferred name.

DON’T:

• Assume someone’s attraction based on their gender identity. Nor someone’s gender identity based on their perceived sex.

• Assume a person’s pronouns. When in doubt, ask. And then use them! If you hear someone misgender your trans coworker, friend, boss, or professor, correct them. This is what practicing good allyship looks like. A good follow-up question to ask your trans companion is, “are there any situations when I shouldn’t use your pronouns?” Sometimes trans people are limited in the spaces they can use their preferred pronouns.

• Bully a trans person about their legal name or deliberately use the wrong pronouns. Please note that both New York City and California have gender discrimination laws protecting transgender people.

• Use terms like “tranny” or “transvestite.” These are generally inappropriate to use in any situation and are seen as slurs.

• Out someone. Outing is when you disclose an LGBTQ person’s identity without their consent. For more about the difference between coming out and outing, watch this video: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FD-HUDlueLCdMPQW8LkmNNdYDaKfeKF5/view?usp=sharing
   

This is by no means an all-encompassing how-to guide to practicing allyship. As I mentioned before, allyship is about action. It is a constant state of education, checking yourself, and supporting those around you. I have included a few resources below for you to continue your self-education. It has been an honor to lay the first plank in the bridge from Boba Guys to the LGBTQ community. Boba Friends, I wish you an informative and prosperous allyship adventure.
 

Written by Mars Marson
With the support of Jae-Young Park
Edited by Liana Huynh

Mars Marson is an animator and illustrator who moonlights as a bobarista. They live and work in NYC with their partner and trained rabbit.

Liana Huynh is happy to be here.

Further Reading:

Online Resources:
Asexuality
https://www.asexuality.org/?q=overview.html

Discrimination Laws
https://www.dfeh.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/32/2017/06/DFEH_WorkPlaceDiscriminationHarassmentPoster-1.pdf
https://www1.nyc.gov/site/cchr/law/legal-guidances-gender-identity-expression.page#3.1
http://outandequal.org/2017-workplace-equality-fact-sheet/

The Genderbread Person
http://itspronouncedmetrosexual.com/2015/03/the-genderbread-person-v3/

Gender Inclusive Language
https://medium.com/the-harry-potter-alliance/why-i-stopped-saying-you-guys-8208daa31c60

Intersex
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAUDKEI4QKI
http://www.isna.org/faq/what_is_intersex

Singular They  
http://iheartsingularthey.com/
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/singular-nonbinary-they

Terminology
http://thepbhscloset.weebly.com/a-list-of-genders--sexualities-and-their-definitions.html

Transgender
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXI9w0PbBXY

Violence
https://www.hrc.org/resources/violence-against-the-transgender-community-in-2018
https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-the-transgender-murder-rate-reveals-the-ugly-lie-of-acceptance-10

Practicing Pronouns
https://www.minus18.org.au/pronouns-app/

Films:
Kumu Hina (2014)
Pariah (2011)
Paris is Burning (1990)

Books:
Fiction
“Speak No Evil” by Uzodinma Iweala
“Love is the Higher Law” by David Levithan
“If You See Me Don’t Say Hi” by Neel Patel

Non-fiction
“The Twilight of Equality?” by Lisa Duggan
“Gaga Feminism” by J. Jack Halberstam
“Cruising Utopia” by Jose Muno

Sucking Is Kinda Our Thing

Hello all!

We are firing up the blog once again. Twice in a week! We want to proactively address a huge piece of legislation that we endorsed / co-signed this week in the city of San Francisco. We know we can't hide our stance on this given the press conference was at Boba Guys!

Background Info

To catch some of you up, yesterday, SF Supervisor Katy Tang and her fellow colleagues authored an ordinance where the City of San Francisco will prohibit "the use of single-use plastic foodware items such as straws, lids, stirrers, utensils, condiment packages, sleeves and beverage plugs." It's all over the news. You can read about it here:

• NBC (KNTV)
• ABC (KGO)
• FOX (KTVU)
• Curbed SF
• note: other cities proposing similar things

First off, we know it's a big f*cking deal. If you're reading this, you are probably familiar with our ethos. We don't do anything half-assed. We do our homework and we are transparent with our rationale. That's what we've done since 2011. It's possible that there are those of you who hate us right now. We get it. I just want you to hear us out.

It's About Changing Culture

We always think about the long game-- one in which our society is sustainable and always pushing toward progress. It's why we chose to use organic milk before anyone else. It's why we spend more money on our team than almost anyone in the entire industry. It's why we're throwing a massive cultural festival, Heritage SF, this Saturday. As stated in our mission, we are committed to bridging cultures... sometimes, that means strictly means changing culture.

We understand this law would change the landscape of cafes in San Francisco forever. Let me actually make a bolder statement, because it's San Francisco and people watch what we do, this will change the landscape of food & beverage for the ENTIRE world. We went on record a month ago with Grubstreet to talk about Taiwan's proposed plastic straw ban. In the article, we said, “No single boba shop or manufacturer is going to take on the risk of converting over to compostable when the price premium is so high." I want to add to that statement-- no single boba shop can take on the risk, but one single boba shop (and their community) can surely start the movement. It's what we did for our industry in 2011. We'll do it again for the food & beverage industry in 2018. 

We've been in close contact with Supervisor Katy Tang and the team putting this bill together. To be frank, we're not in 100% alignment on the ordinance. We've talked to them about it. We think some of the timing and roll out requirements are too strict and it'll hurt small businesses too quickly. This includes the 10% mandate for reusable cups-- not compostable, like ones you wash and re-use-- for events on city property (we think it'll drive up costs and make events too expensive for everyday people). We'll sort out the ordinance in the coming months, but we need dialogue.

Sidebar: not sure if everyone knows, but we work very closely with the local and federal SBA along with the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA). We are used to thinking about things both from the government and small business point of view.

Getting to the (Boba) Straw Point

So, what does this mean for you? At Boba Guys, we've had a semi-secret project to either work with or start a compostable boba straw company that we can fold under our manufacturing company, US Boba Company. We aren't gonna lie... no matter what we do, these straws will be more expensive than regular straws. That being said, given that it's a city-wide ordinance, every food & beverage operator will have to comply, so while it may add some cost, it'll still be marginal (current straws are about $.04/straw). We hope that in the long run, economies of scale will drive the price of compostable boba straws down.

As with Boba Guys drinks, in which our costs are nearly 50% more than an average chain boba shop (damn f*cking organic milk, organic matcha, and Oatly is expensive), we've figured out a way to absorb a lot of the costs. That's why the actual price of your boba drink isn't 50% more. But we understand the immediate impact-- yeah, it'll increase prices a tiny bit when it rolls out.

We know the main gripe is that it's just plain inconvenient. There's no doubt that this sucks for us the most as our entire company is founded on the premise that we use big straws in which viable compostable ones don't exist. And we've tried those metal straws that'll chip your tooth. And those paper ones that melt like the Wicked Witch of the West. It's going to be a hard transition. But we remember when we started charging for single-use plastic bags. We got used to it and studies showed it worked.

It's about the big picture. 

The Big (Ball) Picture

I remember when the 2016 election happened, I came across this article that explains how our society is fractured based on the idea of "I Don’t Know How To Explain To You That You Should Care About Other People." But as entrepreneurs, we're doers and problem-solvers. Bin and I don't know how else to address crazy sh/t than proactively engaging on the topic. For us, there are many topics that we use our platform to address: discrimination / abuse of power, equal representation, shady business practices, automation, lack of dialogue and empathy and today, sustainability.

The underlying belief against banning single-use plastic straws is that we simply don't care about the future generations. We kick the can down the road. That's an incredibly miopic view of humanity. You might as well be Thanos and fall into the Malthusian Trap. To us, it's pretty simple. There is no denying that plastics and excessive use of fossil fuels are bad for the environment. Or remember Straw Turtle and his marine life friends? Anyone who disagrees with us can stop coming to Boba Guys and any of our family of businesses. It's just bad juju. Or you can come, but you gotta debate us and have dialogue! ;)

Silver Linings Flavorbook

To end, we're all trying to do what's best for us. We get it. "Boba Guys suck for being so idealistic." This world is a crazy place and it feels unfair at times. Why help others when they don't help us? Why do I have to care about you when I got my own problems?

I have a take, if you'll indulge me. Those views are short-sighted. To get people to care about bigger problems, you have to change their perspective. And since it's a lens shift, it takes time and baby steps. In this case, we need a culture of progressive optimism and proactive problem-solving. 

I wrote before about how you don't always get what you want. You can ask our team-- we practically lecture them on having a positive outlook on things. No entitlement. If it's a problem, you have the power to fix it. If it's too daunting, find help. Then together, go back and fix it. Like Matt Damon in The Martian says, "You solve enough problems, you get to come home." (Sorry, one of my favorite movies.)

Let's solve these problems one at a time. Or you can sit there, complain, and be on the wrong side of history. ;)

Have a nice day and a pleasant tomorrow,

Andrew (and Bin)

L.A. Story: How We Got Here

Helloooo Boba Guys and Gals!

What’s good?

Today we officially open our first store in Southern California. People often say you need to pinch yourself to believe if something is real. For us, we’ve been punching ourselves to make extra sure that it’s really happening. It still doesn’t feel real. Here’s the full story.

(Sorry, there is no TL;DR.)

Our Initial Thoughts on LA

For those who know Bin and I personally, you know it wasn’t supposed to happen this way. We originally answered a “What’s Up Wednesday” (a weekly Instagram Stories / Snapchat series I do where I answer questions from the public) about expanding to Los Angeles with a "No, there are other markets to go to first." We actually got several clear-cut “No, you won’t do well here” responses when I posed the question to the public later. I expected to see some “No’s” (this was before Instagram had a polling function), but some of y’all DMs were straight up direct and blunt! ;) So we thought, “Okay, maybe L.A. is way too saturated.” We benched the idea for nearly six months.

I did remember one comment in particular, though. One fan wrote, “We’ve seen a lot of boba places similar to Boba Guys, so if you come to L.A., you need to figure out a way to be different.” We loved hearing that because it really changed our approach to expansion. From that moment on, we said to ourselves that if we were to go to L.A., we’d have to show them something different.

We just didn’t know what the market really wanted. We had lots of landlords approach us during those six months, but we couldn’t pull the trigger and I felt bad leading them on. I have often told people that it’s like a relationship—when you aren’t ready, ain’t no person gonna make you happy! Don’t string them along!

So there we went, content just building stores in SF and NY.

The Turning Point

Then, something amazing happened early last year. At the advice of one of my mentors, I looked at our numbers. Given that we’re fully-independent, Bin and I don’t have a real board, so I really didn’t have a reason to keep our metrics current. We essentially just kept swimming as Dory would say.

My mentor said, “You guys are changing culture. Thousands of people come to your store every day. You have the chance to change not just boba, but the landscape of America. Even the hottest restaurants can only influence hundreds of people a day. You touch tens of thousands.”

She was right. As of today, we serve around 10,000 drinks a day. According to our Square reports, about 60% of our customers are new. That means 2M new people are touched by Boba Guys every year. And given that our culture and approach is atypical compared to the rest of the industry, people generally engage on a deeper level when visiting a Boba Guys. We needed to own that. Thank you, Wen, for reminding me of that.

Back on the Saddle

With our renewed confidence, we starting looking for spaces last year. We almost took a deal in a food hall situation, but we kept going back to the IG comment. We needed to really show something different. We needed a raison d’etre.

Bin, my co-founder, described our rationale beautifully in our recent interview with the NY Times:

“This is our first L.A. location, though people have been asking us for years,” said Bin Chen, who started the company with Andrew Chau as a pop-up in San Francisco in 2011. “Our mission is to bridge cultures, and L.A. has an incredibly diverse demographic — all races, from all socioeconomic backgrounds.”

Mr. Chen cited the Los Angeles food scene and chefs like Roy Choi of Kogi BBQ as inspiration: “He paved the way for really inventive cuisine that melded and drew from different cultures, much like our own drinks, like the dirty horchata,” which was influenced by the taquerias he and Mr. Chau frequented while working in the Mission District in San Francisco.

In the end, if we want to continue bridging cultures, we needed to come to L.A. If there's one thing that New York taught us is that despite there being hundreds of boba shops around, only a few could truly introduce boba and tea to new audiences. Yes, we've thought about Austin, PDX, and D.C. as well, but we're simply in L.A. too much to avoid it. It was just silly and our fault that it took so long.

After a series of fortunate events, we found ourselves locking down two potential sites, one in Historical Filipino (HiFi) town and one in Culver City. We are opening the Culver City one today. The HiFi location is expected to open later this summer. You can read about it here.

The lesson for us is that we just needed to try. You see, deep down inside, I actually think we were intimidated by L.A. We shouldn’t admit that to the public, but it’s 100% true. Even though this is our 12th location and have been building Boba Guys for seven years, we still have doubts every day. And I share it publicly because we’ve gotten feedback that it helps aspiring entrepreneurs. So yeah, part of the reason we went to New York before Los Angeles is because L.A. is intimidating, even moreso than New York.

The reason is that Southern California is the motherfucking homeland of boba (in the US). The 626. SGV. And yeah, we’re originally known as those two Asian American kids who made hipster, bougie boba. We remember all the comments in the early days like, “you’re boba for white people.” We think we're American Boba, which is entirely different, but we get it. And it got in our head a bit.

Can’t Stop the Feeling

Fast forward, we’ve been soft open for the last three weeks now and we can’t thank you enough. We feel so foolish and silly for waiting to come to L.A. for so long. Those lines… those lines are just plain insane. Thank you so much for making us feel a part of the community.

The Platform in Culver City is actually a special place because that too is a story of serendipitous events. We verbally agreed on the lease terms in two weeks, which is incredibly fast for us. The landlords actually sought us out and figured we’d be perfect for the space. I happen to be in LA in preparation of the HiFi store and was in the middle of eating a sampler plate at Guisados (soooo good) when I got the call. I ran over to The Platform to scope it out and immediately fell in love with the place. I sent pics of it to Bin like we were adopting a puppy or something. It happened so fast. We signed the lease on March 1 and here we are opening on May 12th. Thank you Joey and David for betting on us. 

What to Expect

Lastly, we want to directly address those of you who live in L.A. First, we don’t ever expect to “take over” or “disrupt” the boba and tea scene down here. There are plenty of great shops and we frequent them all the time. The goal is to add to the fabric of what already exists. It’s like adding a new cut to a hit song.

If you follow us in SF and NY, you’ll know that our mission is to bridge cultures. What we’re really trying to do is actually go beyond boba and tea and bring people together from various backgrounds. It's goes beyond ethnic culture-- we often tell our team that Boba Guys bridges all cultures: techie / hip, urban / suburban, East Coast / West Coast, and even Team Edward vs. Team Jacob (sadly, that reference is dated now...).

We see ourselves as an experience company that happens to serve food and drinks. In SF and NY, you’ll see our Flavorbooks, globally-inspired drink techniques, fancy split-flap signs, and mixed-use spaces. Over time, we hope to do that in LA as well. Of course, we do hope you love our drinks and gram that Strawberry Matcha Latte or Dirty Horchata… but honestly, we just want you to experience something different. That’s what bridging cultures is all about.

And if it’s your first time, please feel free to peruse our blog. You’ll see that we try to operate as transparently as possible. Always have, always will.

Thanks again for reading.

Have a nice day and a pleasant tomorrow,

Andrew & Bin