Founder Profile: Thaiyo and The Power of Pop-Ups

Brick-and-mortars are no longer the only way to attract a loyal customer base. Pop-ups in San Diego are the latest way to build community around your brand, one that will follow you across the county.

Welcome to Lazy Su’s first contribution to the Founder Profile series.

In this profile, we talk to Thaiyo, a Filipino-Thai inspired tea brand in San Diego.

Nearing their one year anniversary, Thaiyo has built a successful brand that extends beyond its unique drinks. While people come for their fun pandan and mango sticky rice drinks, they return for the community that they find at their pop-ups and events.

In this interview, we talk about the story behind Thaiyo and the importance of their cultural roots in creating this idea. Raven and Audi share the growing pains of starting a drinks business, sharing tips on how to leverage the local network to get the support you need as a young founder.

Some key takeaways they offer young food & beverage businesses are to:

• Tap into local support systems, Like the Asian Business Association of San Diego.

• Not worry about asking too many questions! Talk to your network or your local permitting office.

• Build on an idea you love, whether that's a drink from your heritage or a community of shared values.

Read on for the full transcript of the interview.

Thaiyo Founder Profile Interview

Raven: "Doing a pop up just seemed more doable with our situations. When we first started, we still both had other jobs and weren’t ready to commit to this 100%. We were just more so like, “Okay, let's see how it goes.”

Charlene 

Firstly, I want to thank you guys again for joining me in the conversation. At Lazy Su we are working to build resources for community-minded food and beverage ideas in San Diego, who are working to turn an idea into a real business concept. And so we are building out a Founder Profile series right now.

I'm super excited to start that series with you guys–with Thaiyo–because I think what you guys are doing sits at a really interesting nexus. First in terms of the products you guys are offering with Asian-inspired drinks and flavors, which I think is very appealing to consumers right now, especially in San Diego. And then also on the marketing and pop up side of things, where you guys have built a really interesting community around your concept.

So to start the conversation, I'd love to just hear about how you guys came up with this idea and move from it just being an idea and into an actual business venture.

Raven

Yeah, I think what sparked the idea of just starting something was feeling like we had so many ideas all the time, and we didn't know where to share them or who to share them with. And on top of that we, before doing Thaiyo, we were pretty big consumers of food and drinks. Just kind of trying to find our favorite places in San Diego.

Audi

Connoisseurs!

But we felt like there were certain flavors or ideas that were missing in that scene. And that's where it correlated to where we were like maybe we should just start our own thing. So that was where Thaiyo was born.

Yeah, I think the flavors that we also wanted to portray, it was from our culture. That's the story behind the name as well, Thaiyo. In Tagalog, it means us, like us together [points to himself and Raven].

We added the “Thai” in there because that's my culture.

Raven is Filipino, and that's what makes us. We didn't really see a lot of flavors that match our unique combination of flavors, so that's what we wanted to do.

And we have experience in–or both of our families are very entrepreneurial.

Audi

My mom had a restaurant, and then I also opened up a restaurant with my dad when I was younger, like I kind of helped with that.

So two restaurants in my life, so I've always been dealing with food, drinks as well, but not so much. But me and my dad opened up a tacos and boba shop, and it was also Asian fusion.

It's all–it's kind of funny that we also did this too, because it's almost like Asian fusion. But it's fusing two Asian cultures.

Just coming from a background of food. Also being a consumer and a connoisseur of foods. And wanting to share that, it's like everything coincides with building the business that makes sense.

Charlene

Are you both from San Diego? Have you always been in this area?

Raven

So, we met each other in Riverside, actually. That's where I grew up. And then we moved to San Diego around like 2021. So, we've been here since then. 

Audi

Grew up in SF, and then moved to Riverside, where I met Ray, and then came to SD for university. But right after I graduated, that's when we started the business.

Charlene

I wanted to talk to you guys about the cultural influence in the flavors of the products that you guys are developing. I know for me personally–I like the word connoisseur, I don't know if I feel confident in using that word for myself at this point, but food has definitely been an important part of my life. Also in my relationship to my own culture.

As I moved out of my home and was cooking for myself, cooking Chinese food was both sometimes like me returning to comforting recipes that I know from childhood. But it also became a way of exploring parts of my culture that weren't passed down through my mom or my grandparents

So I’m curious, for you guys as you guys have been developing your drinks and sourcing ingredients and stuff, how much of it has been a return to things that you kind of know from your childhood and from your families, and how much of it has been like a new opportunity to learn things that you weren't familiar with, and discover new things.

Raven

I think for me, actually growing up, I was surrounded by my Filipino side. But it wasn't really pushed on to me to be knowledgeable about it, and you know, know all the dishes and how to speak Tagalog. I was very distant from that side.

Doing Thaiyo actually inspired me to want to learn more about flavors. Before even doing it, I just did a lot of research of what kind of flavors can I put in drinks? What kind of flavors can I pair with these things? Like taking a popular drink but putting a Filipino twist on it. I think starting this actually made me more in tune with my Filipino side.

Audi

I think the community as well–we have a big Filipino community, yeah, especially in San Diego, South Bay. I'm not Filipino, but I feel like they've accepted me into this culture. Whenever me and Ray hanging out, we are like the two Filipinos–I’m not Filipino, but they accepted me with open arms, and they've been super supportive of the business.

So that was cool. And I’m happy that Ray gets to like learn more about her culture as well. Like she said, she wasn't too much into the culture growing up, so it's really cool to be in this community.

Raven

Yeah, but even for him from the Thai side…We've been together for like almost nine years now, and I was with him when his mom still had the restaurant. I was working with them and they had drinks like Thai tea, green Thai tea.

But, it was in Riverside, so I feel like people don't really appreciate those flavors as much as they should. So bringing them out here and putting like our own twist on them, and seeing how popular they've become…like a pandan green Thai tea is cool to see. So very fulfilling.

Audi

It’s also fun–we have a drink, a mango sticky rice green Thai tea. Growing up, I cooked a lot as well. So making the sticky rice fresh before every single event is fun. I love cooking, so I get to continue that cooking culture as well–cooking drinks up.

Charlene

I think that's an amazing thing to be able to both engage with your community through this idea, through Thaiyo, but also be continuing your own passions, to be able to express your curiosity or your journey in your own culture. That's super interesting to hear about.

I kind of want to shift over to some of the more operational/logistical side of things. Audi, you mentioned–well, you both kind of had experience with Audi's parents in the more traditional restaurant side of things. What made you guys decide to go through a slightly less traditional  pop-up route with Thaiyo?

Raven

Honestly, I think seeing how difficult it is to maintain a storefront, whether that's a cafe or a full restaurant, it does kind of like scare you away a little bit.

Doing a pop up just seemed more doable with our situations. When we first started, we still both had other jobs and weren’t ready to commit to this 100%. We were just more so like, “Okay, let's see how it goes.”

It was just easier for us at that time to start a pop-up and do it sporadically throughout the month. But then, as we've grown within the past few months and seen like “Oh, this can actually be a real thing.” It shifted how we do operate as a whole, and sometimes it does feel like we're a storefront, we just don’t have an actual storefront.

Charlene

Because you guys have a consistent presence at certain locations now, right? I'm sure you guys feel a bit more grounded, I guess, physically now in several locations. And do you feel like there has been a shift in how you engage with your consumers or how people are discovering you or relating to you now versus a year ago?

Audi

"We were building our brand very early and trying to put a stamp on people's lives with our drink and our name. In the early stages it was really just a name. As we progressed, there were more things that were affiliated with Thaiyo–like Thaiyo and Friends."

We had an event recently, actually [points to poster in background for the event],  that was our first event where we had live performers and vendors outside. It was building this experience for people, to bring people together in the community that supports us. That's why I call it Thaiyo and Friends, like us and friends, it's just bringing everyone together.

I think, like, after that first event, people are becoming familiar with what we're trying to do. Rather than just selling drinks, it’s bringing people together, bringing community together, and helping other people as well.

Charlene

When you guys were building up your idea, what type of resources…I mean, obviously it seems like the community probably plays a big role in how you guys move forward and how you guys operate. And then I'm sure the background you have with family and out of your specific experience starting a restaurant with your dad, as you mentioned…Beyond those two things, what resources were super important to you guys, and what types of things did you tap into to operationalize?

Audi

Honestly, in the beginning we didn't have a lot of resources. There wasn't someone that we could go to, or at least that that we knew of at the time. There wasn't someone that we could go to and ask, “How can I do this? How can I do that?”

We really have to search up hours and hours for how we could make everything up to code, everything legal with permits, the LLC, business insurance. Everything was just Google searches.

As soon as we started getting more popular, then we were networking with people. That's when we started meeting other business owners and then they would connect us with other things. 

I think the best way was to be networking. We just didn't know the people at the time. I was fresh out of university and I wasn't really meeting business people, especially in San Diego.

Raven

I also think, too, for a lot of the specific things, like, where should I source this? Where's the best place to get paper towels and stuff like that?

It was a lot of making mistakes and checking out different stores. Constantly being open to trying different things. I think that was inevitably the best way to become fully acclimated with what you need for what.

Audi

Trail and error.

Charlene

Yeah, that makes sense. Maybe the answer is networking, but I'm going to ask this question anyways:

What advice do you have to somebody who is in the position that you guys were in several years ago? In this day and age, I think AI is a thing that people are leveraging a lot for the unfamiliar–you just go to a chat bot for legal support, business and administrative support.

Beyond that, maybe even getting deeper into the networking side of things, how do people get started and find the resources that might be ultimately helpful for them?

Audi

I think it always starts with an online search, right? Of what do you need, and then you can find the resources off of that.

For example, permits, right? The permits that we needed, I obviously needed to go to the health department to get the health permits we needed. Then as soon as I can go to a physical location, I go there and I just keep picking their brains. What do I need? Is this okay? Is this not okay? Is it better if I do this or that? Just ask them a whole bunch of questions.

One thing I've learned now that we didn't know before is every county has some type of business association, especially specific to maybe your demographic as well. So, for example, San Diego has an Asian Business Association, and we didn't know that until maybe six months in.

Once we found that out, I was looking at what they offer and they offer a lot of help for Asian businesses.

If someone were to look for somewhere to start, for San Diego specifically, that's definitely a good place to start.

Charlene

That’s a great tip.

I want to close out on you guys personally, and your product. I know you guys released some seasonal drinks recently. Amongst those, or other historical drinks that you've had, what are your guys' favorites of the things that you guys have created?

Raven

I love this question. I always tell people my favorite, my most prized possession, is a drink that we have called the Liquid Gold. It's a chrysanthemum tea base and then a matcha cream top. The reason why I'm so obsessed with it is because there was literally nothing that I've ever seen that tastes or just is like that drink. I try to recommend everyone to try it, even if you don't like chrysanthemum, or if you've never had it. I'm always like, please just try it once.

So that's mine.

Audi

I like that drink too because growing up, I always drank chrysanthemum tea. Always. I would go to this Asian supermarket all the time, get jugs of it. So the fact that we have it on the menu is like, it belongs–it's like the business is us.

My favorite drink on the menu would be mango sticky rice green Thai tea. I just love the process of it–making the sticky rice in the morning.

But I think the one that represents us the best would be Ube Thaiyo tea. 

Raven

Oh, for sure. 

Audi

That's literally us put into a drink. Ube and Thai tea.

Charlene

Well, is there anything you guys want to plug, anything that's coming up or anything you want to just throw in there before we close out the conversation?

Raven

We're actually reaching our one year soon, and we're celebrating it by putting together another market with all of our friend vendors.

August 1 will be Thaiyo's birthday celebration, and we're super excited. There's going to be so many things happening within that market, so if you guys could make it out!

Transcribed by Otter.ai. Lightly edited for clarity.