Russ: This is the BusinessMakers Show heard on the radio and seen online at TheBusinessMakers.com. It's guest time on the show and we're talking major foodie guests today because with me, I have Gary Murphy, founder, President and CEO and Crystal Lee, Global Accounts Manager with Little Products, Co. Gary, Crystal, welcome to The BusinessMakers Show.
Gary: Russ, great to see you, again.
Crystal: Thank you for having us.
Russ: You bet. All right, well let's start. Tell us about Little Products, Co.
Gary: Well, Little Products, Co. is the company that I formed early last year. We got our start originally three years ago in Vegas and our first product is Little Soya. It's a soy sauce that we have in several stores around town.
Russ: Okay, now it's a unique soy sauce, I know for a fact. In fact the container is unique so let's show that to our audience ___ ___ ____.
Gary: It's a little single use packet container here, slightly larger than a regular soy sauce packet.
Russ: Right.
Gary: Comes just like this and in the grocery stores, it comes 12 to a package.
Russ: Yeah.
Gary: And of course, with the restaurants.
Russ: So tell us about the company. How did it get started and my goodness, that's a very specialty product. Have you always been in this business?
Gary: Well, I've not always been in this business.
Russ: Okay.
Gary: In the food business just about three years. Been asked that question a few different times. This product here, as far as like I briefly mentioned, starting in Las Vegas.
Russ: Right.
Gary: With a couple of the large hotel casinos.
Russ: Oh wow.
Gary: They were using it only for room service and buffet.
Russ: Did you have a relationship with the casinos already?
Gary: I had an co-
Russ: Other than just being a big gambler [laughs].
Gary: Thank God I'm not a big gambler. You know, if you live in Las Vegas, you really cannot be.
Russ: Right.
Gary: Now, unless you're good.
Russ: Okay.
Gary: If you're good that's a different story.
Russ: All right. All right.
Gary: I was born and raised in Houston -
Russ: Okay.
Gary: - but I go to Vegas a few years back.
Russ: Okay.
Gary: And I'd open a China sourcing company there.
Russ: Oh, so you were already bringing in products.
Gary: Right.
Russ: What products were you bringing in?
Gary: You know, everything but food.
Russ: Okay.
Gary: We were bringing in furniture, granite, glass, you know, for all the large hotel-casinos that were being built.
Russ: Okay.
Gary: You know, these two, or three billion dollars properties.
Russ: Right, right.
Gary: They all needed these type products -
Russ: Right.
Gary: - from China -
Russ: Right.
Gary: - and other parts of the world. That's kinda how it got it started.
Russ: Okay. So what made you get into food and specifically soy sauce? You know, what motivated that?
Gary: Well, I can tell you that I never saw it coming.
Russ: Okay. That's okay.
Gary: We, yeah, we were doing some business for Harrah's Casinos -
Russ: Okay.
Gary: Which owned Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas.
Russ: Okay.
Gary: Which if anyone's been to Vegas - hopefully several of you have - Caesar's is one of the premiere five-star properties.
Russ: Right, right.
Gary: So a senior vice president asked us - actually, he literally showed us a picture -
Russ: Yeah.
Gary: - just a picture of a fish and said, "If you can find the best soy sauce in the world in a fish-shaped container, like I'd seen before, we will buy it from you." And honestly, I thought they were gonna buy just a few thousand.
Russ: Yeah.
Gary: Well, we checked China, Korea, Japan, even Vietnam -
Russ: Right.
Gary: For the best soy sauce.
Russ: Right.
Gary: We had it tested with a few of the executive chefs in Las Vegas.
Russ: Okay.
Gary: Because, you know, it's great that we liked the product but ultimately the executive chefs, you know, they can, in one taste -
Russ: Yeah.
Gary: - they know if it's good or not.
Russ: Right.
Gary: So after we had multiple samples come and China was one of the last samples that I had them test on purpose. Finally, they picked it and they placed their first order for 50,000 of these and the orders never stopped coming.
Russ: My goodness. Does the senior vice president there that made this request and show you a picture; does he know how well you're doing today?
Gary: He knows, just by e-mail. You know after he placed the order, you know, he was so high level I tried to thank him a few times after and he -
Russ: Couldn't even get to him, then?
Gary: He was hard to get to and honestly, one time he told me, "Look, I love your product. I'm so busy; I don't have time to talk. Just make sure you still continue to send us the best in the world," and we did.
Russ: Oh, that is fantastic. Okay, Crystal, how long have you been with Gary in this mission?
Crystal: I came on in June.
Russ: Okay.
Crystal: So fairly recently.
Russ: So you're a veteran now.
Gary: Yeah.
Crystal: Well, yeah.
Russ: Right.
Crystal: Actually, I am, considering how fast we've been going.
Russ: Right.
Crystal: I feel like I learned - a crash course in soy sauce and the food/grocery world like within the past six months.
Russ: Right, because you two didn't have a background in the food world, grocery world, or soy sauce world, right?
Crystal: Right, right. It's new.
Russ: Okay, okay. What are you doing today?
Crystal: Well, I'm the Global Accounts Manager, which we just kinda found out that we are gonna be global this year.
Russ: Okay.
Crystal: We've had a lot of interest from China and Canada.
Russ: Okay.
Crystal: So I do everything from sales to marketing to - we're in a lot of trade shows now.
Russ: Okay.
Crystal: All of our existing clients, I mean you name it. It's the name of the game with a startup.
Russ: Okay, absolutely. So soy sauce. So you started like this and you started in Caesars Palace and these casinos, but now you're really moving into the retail world, that's a pretty significant jump. I mean all this merchandising and packaging. I assume you didn't have that in place when you were just in the casinos?
Gary: You know, you're getting this big smile here because I was just going back to like 19 months ago when the idea was born that we would launch it in grocery stores.
Russ: Right.
Gary: Because you know, we'd only been on the, what's called the food service side, right?
Russ: Right.
Gary: So on the grocery end, I mean, it was literally jumping in there and learning and asking a lot of questions.
Russ: Okay, so you didn't go hire some big grocery retail specialist? You learned it yourself?
Gary: You know, I checked out some of their prices and minimum $10,000.00 to $20,000.00 to hire the right company.
Russ: Right.
Gary: And I said I can do it myself.
Russ: Okay, so, so I mean you have some of the products. Show us some of the packaging that you've come up with.
Gary: Well, this is our package of 12 here that you'll see in HEB, Rice Epicurean and some of the other big stores.
Russ: Right.
Gary: So it comes in packages of 12, of course the fish that I showed you earlier.
Russ: Right.
Gary: Everything that you see here, as far as the front, back and the bottom, was designed by me.
Russ: All right.
Gary: Of course, I did find the best graphic designer in Houston.
Russ: Okay, okay.
Gary: Guy named Nick Su.
Russ: Okay.
Gary: To do all the design.
Russ: Okay.
Gary: Because, you know, it's one thing to have a great product but ultimately, you have to have unique, really, really different packaging and that's - everything is original that you see here.
Crystal: Personality.
Gary: Personality, right.
Russ: Okay, okay.
Gary: As you see from the little girl.
Russ: Well, taste is important but this is extraordinarily important or they'll never taste it if you don't - right?
Gary: Right. I can give you a great example. I was in Rhode Island -
Russ: Okay.
Gary: - just a few months ago, meeting with one of the largest national food distributors.
Russ: Yeah.
Gary: And at the end of the meeting, he said to me, "Gary, you know, I need to tell you, you guys are really doing it right on the marketing/branding side."
Russ: Yeah.
Gary: And I said, "Well what do you mean by that?" He said, "I can tell you, if you'd come to this meeting with just a traditional bottle of soy sauce," he goes, "matter of fact, you wouldn't even come to the meeting. Because we've got tons of that." And he takes a package, he said, "But I've never seen anything like this before and that's why we're gonna start carrying you."
Russ: That's so cool. Well, and the whole motivation in the beginning was the fact that you packaged it in these little fish containers and you've stayed totally loyal to that so far, right?
Gary: Right. Well completely. We've had - and Crystal kinda beats me on the head about this sometimes, 'cause we get a lot of requests from, especially the restaurant and hotel side, for us to come out with one gallon or five gallon containers.
Russ: Yeah.
Gary: And we are just now switching - well, in the next few months we're getting our first order in for some of the high-end restaurants that want it in larger containers -
Russ: Okay.
Gary: Because I knew, per the grocery stores that told me, "Gary, we have nothing like this in our stores."
Russ: Yeah.
Gary: You know, "How fast can we get it?" And I'm like, "Wait, is this a dream? What's going on here? Normally it takes years.
Russ: Tough problem, isn't it?
Gary: Yeah.
Russ: No, I know. I know. I mean that's why you're a guest here. This is extraordinary.
Gary: Right.
Crystal: It's pretty unheard of, actually, the way that - how quickly to get into stores. I mean some people have told us it took 'em, what, five years.
Russ: Yeah.
Gary: Right.
Crystal: And we were there in months.
Gary: Right.
Russ: All right, well keep doing what you're doing. We're talking with Gary Murphy and Crystal Lee of Little Products Co, and we'll be back with more with them after this. This is the BusinessMakers Show heard on the radio and seen online at TheBusinessMakers.com. This is the BusinessMakers Show heard on the radio and seen online at TheBusinessMakers.com. And continuing on with Gary Murphy, founder, President and CEO and Crystal Lee, Global Accounts Manager of Little Product Co, the company that's bringing out, I don't even know if we'd even said this name but you actually call it Little Soya.
Gary: Right, Little Soya. Of course, in China, they call soy sauce, soya sauce.
Russ: Okay.
Gary: But Little Soya's the brand.
Russ: Okay, Little Soya. So I mean that was even probably been a major step in your success so far and all this merchandising and packaging was naming it and putting it in these little fish containers.
Gary: Well yeah and Crystal touched on that earlier. You know, the idea of a soy sauce, you know, if you think about soy sauce, it's kind of a boring thing, right?
Russ: Yeah.
Gary: So we -
Russ: I mean I like it -
Gary: Well yeah.
Russ: - but it is boring.
Gary: So in order to sell it, though, in order to get in front of these billion-dollar brands out there, I had to come up with a personality -
Russ: Yeah.
Gary: So Little Soya had to have its own - even the smile, the nice little tongue kinda coming out there a little bit.
Russ: Oh yeah, all right, cool.
Crystal: And you know, Americans in particular, have a one-track mind when it comes to soy sauce.
Russ: Right.
Crystal: So you have to kind of show them, which is our logo, you know, our slogan, it's, "Changing the way America thinks about soy sauce."
Russ: Cool, really cool.
Crystal: So.
Russ: Now you mentioned, you know, HEB and Rice food markets. What other stores are you in that you can tell us about so far?
Gary: Sure, well there's a few that we're on confidentiality agreements on.
Russ: Okay.
Gary: That'll be launching later this summer but the big ones for us, HEB, which we started just this past July.
Russ: Okay.
Gary: Started in just a few of their stores. We're now in just under 100, throughout Texas.
Russ: Wow.
Gary: All Rice Epicureans. Phonecia. Specks, downtown. Even a -
Crystal: H-Mart.
Gary: Oh, H-Mart and Gluten Free Houston, even though it's just a one shop, pretty big. Now the big news - and again, I can't say the name yet. It's one of the largest national food grocery stores in America. They were gonna launch us in 50 stores -
Russ: Okay.
Gary: And then 100. And we were thrilled.
Russ: Yeah, yeah.
Gary: We're thrilled. We just got word about three weeks ago, they're gonna launch us in 900 of their stores nationally beginning May.
Russ: My goodness.
Gary: Yeah and then we also got word about two weeks ago - and we haven't signed the deal yet, we gotta go up and see 'em in Canada - but one of the largest Canadian food distribution companies is talking about putting us n 4,000 to 5,000 of their stores later this year.
Russ: Well this is totally impressive because we all know how hard it is to get into those stores and then from my understanding, particularly with the grocery stores business, you have to buy shelf space, so how did you guys, you know, maneuver through that and achieve the success you've already achieved?
Gary: Well I'll start off a little bit on that. Crystal's been my - as I call her - my right-hand everything but, you know, traditionally that's how it is. You pay what they call - they used to call them slotting fees. Now they call they call them admin fees.
Russ: Okay.
Gary: Anywhere from a few hundred dollars to several thousand.
Russ: Right.
Gary: I heard about a water company that had to pay a hundred thousand to get into some stores.
Russ: Okay.
Gary: But at this point, we've paid zero.
Russ: Wow.
Gary: And that was no easy feat. Part of it - someone asked me the other day and I called it the Little Soya magic.
Russ: Okay.
Gary: But really, it's the stores - even some of these big-time executives have told me the same thing which is, "Gary, we have nothing like this in our stores, nationally, and we wanna get you in as fast as we can." Crystal, on the operations side, has had some experience with that. Crystal, go ahead.
Crystal: Yeah, I mean we are fortunate in that we started out in HEB. HEB's a local Texas company.
Russ: Right.
Crystal: And they've worked with us a lot. So we're in their faces a lot.
Russ: Right.
Crystal: That's been a big part of our success is going and talking to all these managers and so in that sense, you know, a lot of stores are used to vendors that don't ever see them.
Russ: Okay.
Crystal: And so you're not ever in front of them. But you know, we -
Russ: Okay, person-to-person contact makes the difference.
Crystal: We do a lot of person-to-person.
Russ: But so would I go into HEB and would I find Little Soya right next to the regular soy sauce on the shelf and that's it?
Crystal: Not yet.
Russ: Okay. So where would I find 'em?
Crystal: Right now you would find it near the sushi.
Russ: Oh.
Crystal: In all of the HEB's there's a sushi kiosk.
Russ: Well, that might even be better, though, right?
Gary: It's huge coverage there because, you know, the stores - they all have a method to the madness when you walk in the door.
Russ: Right. Obviously.
Gary: And they want you to buy as much _____ as possible.
Russ: Right.
Gary: So with the sushi department area, notice next time you go into the HEB, or any of the stores like that.
Russ: Right.
Gary: Is the most high-trafficked area of the store.
Russ: Right.
Gary: And our particular display is in the actual square footage of the store -
Russ: Geeze.
Gary: That on the entire, what 80,000 square foot store, has the highest coverage.
Russ: Yeah, wow.
Gary: So eventually we will be on the shelf. It just takes a little bit longer. Now, when we launched this summer, in the, you know, 900 stores -
Russ: Right.
Gary: - we will be on the shelf right next to the big guys.
Russ: Okay but when you're on the shelf, does that mean you'll no longer be by the sushi?
Gary: No, we'll still be in both.
Russ: Okay. Wow. All right, so I think as you guys both know that this is really a business-focused show. We have an audience of smart, experienced business people and they know that taking on what the growth that you've taken on already sort of doesn't come without challenges and then this big thing that you mentioned coming right around the corner, I mean this calls for pretty significant financing, doesn't it, to finance growth?
Gary: Very. It is well, I just couldn't begin to tell you the full story in just in a quick, nutshell, that's why we brought on investors and a strong advisory board team. We have seven what I call heavy-hitter advisors.
Russ: Okay.
Gary: Randall Onstead, founder of Randall's.
Russ: Oh yeah.
Gary: John Sheptor, CEO of Imperial Sugar.
Russ: The sugar, yeah.
Gary: Even Clayton Christopher, founder of Sweet Leaf Tea -
Russ: Yeah.
Gary: - does some consulting with me.
Crystal: Phil Morabito.
Gary: Phil Morabito from, of course, founder of Pierpont Communications.
Russ: Pierpont. Yeah.
Gary: You know, I always say that I'm not the smartest guy in the room.
Russ: Yeah.
Gary: But I know the smartest guy in the room.
Russ: That's great.
Gary: And so we're having, actually, our second advisory board meeting here in a few weeks. So they help us.
Russ: Okay.
Gary: They help us head down the right path.
Russ: Yeah.
Gary: Because -
Russ: Well, I'm sure that what they're gonna have to recommend and that you're gonna do - not that I'm advising -
Gary: Yeah.
Russ: - you're probably gonna have to get some major financing to buy product - unless you've already got such a relationship with your manufacturing process in China that they'll give you credit.
Gary: Well, we brought in, originally, a half a million to get us going.
Russ: Right.
Gary: And then we will start a second round of funding here probably in the next few weeks.
Russ: Okay.
Gary: That'll be multiple of 500 because, you know, it takes a lotta time, money, cash and effort, right? And key word is cash.
Russ: Yeah.
Gary: And, you know, while I would like to say, you know it's a small startup biz on just friends and family money -
Russ: Right.
Gary: - it's not.
Russ: Yeah.
Gary: To go on the track that we're on, I mean we are blazing a path to be in 5,000 stores by the end of this year.
Russ: How exciting.
Gary: And our goal was to be in 5,000 stores in 5 years.
Russ: Okay. So -
Gary: So -
Crystal: Yeah.
Gary: - it's kinda crazy.
Russ: What a problem.
Gary: Yeah, right it's kinda strange.
Russ: All right so before I let you go, number one, tell us what's in the future for Little Products Company. I mean is it just gonna be Little Soya and that's, you've got your hands full with that - is that it?
Gary: I know pretty well Crystal's got a pretty good grasp on that. Crystal?
Crystal: Well, you know, we just got back from a show that we did where we got such overwhelming response.
Russ: Yeah?
Crystal: I mean independent retailers, stores, restaurants, everybody. So we're going in a big direction towards hotels, restaurants, of course lots more stores. We're going global.
Russ: Okay.
Crystal: Next product is gonna be Little Saucy, which is a hot sauce.
Russ: Oh. Okay.
Crystal: That's gonna come in a small container.
Russ: Little Saucy, all right.
Crystal: If you get - if you see the trend, we kinda do little things.
Russ: Yeah.
Gary: Little pepper shape. Little pepper shaped small container.
Russ: Ah, okay.
Gary: All natural, gluten free.
Russ: Okay, wow. Now when are we gonna see that?
Gary: We are almost done with the recipe right now.
Russ: All right.
Gary: We are - the next process that we're about 80 percent done, which is the actual packaging to make sure that it's got the right shelf life and all that kinda good stuff. So we have our food scientists in the US and in China kinda collaborating together.
Russ: Okay.
Gary: I'm hoping for a launch of about July to August. You know, at this point, maybe it's Christmas but certainly before.
Russ: Okay, now I'm a hot sauce specialist as well.
Gary: Okay.
Russ: And so I'm curious. I mean even if it's a little pepper, I mean, number one, the hot sauce I like, you know, has some pretty big chunks of peppers and pickles, so you wouldn't have just a little thing like you have for soy sauce, you'd have to unscrew the lid or something like that?
Gary: Well yeah. It'll be the, you know, of course these, the lid screws on and off.
Russ: Yeah.
Gary: Of course they kinda like this.
Russ: Yeah, right, right.
Gary: ______ _____ the cap goes back on. The lid'll be a little bit bigger.
Russ: Yeah.
Gary: The sauce will be similar to like a Sriracha.
Russ: Okay.
Gary: A little bit hotter.
Russ: Okay.
Gary: And the latest recipe that we had just taste-tested just a few weeks ago, which took forever to get it to this point, but when you first taste it, it's got a bit of a sweet taste -
Russ: Yeah.
Gary: - and then right then after that kinda punches you with the spice after -
Russ: That sounds great.
Gary: -and, or the heat if you will.
Russ: Okay.
Gary: And it's gonna be exciting.
Russ: Okay, I might wanna get you back when that comes out, too.
Crystal: Yeah.
Gary: Okay.
Russ: To, number one, see if you guys are still alive -
Gary: Sure.
Russ: - if you're getting any sleep, any of that stuff. And one last thing before I let you go. I know you have quite an interesting entrepreneur background. New, here in food, but give us a, like a 60-second overview of your entrepreneurship background.
Gary: Sixty seconds.
Russ: Yeah.
Gary: So I've started many companies in the past 20 years, notably Mach Five Couriers. Sold that back around 2004. We sold it with about 75 employees.
Russ: Okay.
Gary: It was the largest courier process serving company in Texas. Also founded Six Degrees Lounge in Downtown Houston several years back. Of course, Arisa Global in Las Vegas.
Russ: Yeah.
Gary: And, you know, it took that 20 years of sales, marketing, branding, operations, entrepreneurs - several failures in there.
Russ: Yeah.
Gary: You know, a couple successes. Took all that to start Little Soya. Had I not already had all that plus ten years China experience, no way.
Russ: Okay.
Gary: No way we'd be going into 5,000 stores in one year.
Russ: Okay.
Gary: Right?
Russ: Guys, I really appreciate you coming in and telling the story about Little Soya and I wish you good luck in the future.
Gary: Thanks Russ.
Crystal: Thank you.
Russ: You bet. That's Gary Murphy and Crystal Lee of Little Products Company, the company bringing you Little Soya. And this is the BusinessMakers Show heard on the radio and seen online at TheBusinessMakers.com.
