S6 Ep29: Spanish Savory Secrets: From Idea to Table Success with Aaron Luo
“We want to make sure the product is different—not better, but different than what’s out there.” — Aaron Luo
Nestled among the country's many gastronomic wonders lies an unsung hero: authentic Spanish charcuterie. With its rich history, meticulous craftsmanship, and mouthwatering flavors, this culinary gem has captured the hearts and palates of food enthusiasts worldwide.
Every slice tells a tale of age-old techniques handed down through generations, carefully selected ingredients, and an unwavering commitment to quality. The meticulous curing process involves patiently air-drying meats in natural environments such as mountainous cellars or coastal breezy areas. This time-honored method ensures that each product develops its unique flavors while preserving its authenticity.
This week, Justine sits with Aaron Luo. Along with his business associate Carmen Chen Wu, Aaron shares a rich Chinese heritage with a Spanish upbringing where they developed a deep appreciation for local Spanish cuisine, particularly charcuterie. Roughly two decades ago, they relocated to the United States only to face the difficulty in sourcing high-quality Spanish charcuterie at a reasonable price. This challenge led them to establish Mercado Famous, a European gourmet food brand, specializing in Spanish delicacies.
Listen in as Aaron reveals the best-kept secrets of Spanish Cuisine as he walks us through his entrepreneurial journey. Justine and Aaron also cover the process of popularizing Spanish cuisine, ensuring the quality and consistency of products, criteria for choosing team members and potential partners, the significance of value differentiation, the necessity of fostering appropriate conversations, and how to turn a viable idea into a viable business.
Connect with Aaron:
Aaron Luo has an extensive background in the global supply chain, operations, and corporate finance. His impressive portfolio includes the foundation of innovative consumer brands and services including Caraa, a New York City-based sports bag and accessory company, and Mercado Famous, a haven for authentic Spanish charcuterie.
Born and raised in China, Aaron and his business associate, Carmen, share a passion for food, especially Spanish cuisine they discovered during their upbringing in Spain. They developed a particular interest in Spanish charcuterie, which eventually became a crucial aspect of their culinary journey.
After relocating to the U.S. nearly two decades ago, they soon realized that finding affordable, high-quality Spanish charcuterie was a daunting task. Spurred by this challenge, they launched their second venture, Mercado Famous where they aim to bring people closer together with high-quality, delicious food.
Episode Highlights:
02:05 A Look Into the Spanish Culture
06:46 Spanish vs Italian Charcuterie
10:32 The History of Farm Industry
15:47 Bringing the Best of Spain to the US
20:38 Making Spanish Food More Mainstream
24:29 Finding the Right Product
29:12 The Importance of Value Differentiation
32:53 From a Viable Idea to a Viable Business
Tweets:
Spanish charcuterie stands as one of Spain's greatest culinary treasures. Discover the secret to authentic, delicious, and healthy Spanish Charcuterie with @jreichman and Mercado Famous CEO, Aaron Luo. #podcast #entrepreneurship #socialgood #inspiration #impactmatters #NextGenChef #EssentialIngredients #MercadoFamous #SpanishCharcuterie #foodculture #meatcuration #naturalpreservation
Inspirational Quotes:
01:56 “Culture often is integral to people building their business and creating a great a better for you food option.” —Justine Reichman
05:18 “Success for us is not to sell more products. It's to share how we grew up with in terms of culture and family and utilizing food as a vehicle to bring people together.” —Aaron Luo
17:51 “The more we have access to better products, the greater the demand is going to be because people are going to be able to taste the difference.” —Justine Reichman
22:37 “Once you start thinking that ingredient more as a mainstream, the creativity starts flowing a lot more.” —Aaron Luo
25:03 “The road of starting new brands and new businesses… is [about] finding the right product. Product is queen.” —Aaron Luo
27:29 “We want to make sure the product is different—not better, but different than what's out there.” —Aaron Luo
Transcriptions:
Justine Reichman: Good afternoon, and welcome to Essential Ingredients. I'm your host, Justine Reichman. Today with me is Aaron Luo, who is the Co-Founder and CEO of Mercado Famous.
Welcome, Aaron.
Aaron Luo: Thank you, Justine, very excited to be here. Can't wait to dive into some exciting topics.
Justine Reichman: Me too. And for those that are not familiar with Mercado Famous, maybe you can just make a short intro so that they have some idea of what we're talking about for the next 20, 30 minutes.
Aaron Luo: Sure. Sure. Absolutely. So I'm Aaron, I'm the Co-Founder, CEO of Mercado Famous. If I boil it down, Mercado Famous is trying to bring the best of the Spanish culture to the American consumers. So yes, we're starting with charcuterie, that wonderful jamon, chorizo and salchichons. But the ultimate goal is to introduce this wonderful culture that we grew up to the American people. So that's kind of the best way to really summarize. And in all honesty, when we sit down usually and think through the brand, and this defines what success looks like, the success for us is not to sell more hands. The success for us is to bring a little bit of Spanish, easygoing, and enjoy live type of culture for the US, which is the country we're currently in. So I think that's a good way to start a conversation and how we are thinking about the brand.
“Culture often is integral to people building their business and creating a great a better for you food option.” —Justine Reichman
Justine Reichman: I appreciate that. And it brings up a couple of topics for me that I didn't even know we're going to talk about. So that's exciting. The first thing you said was about culture. I think culture often is really integral to people building their business and creating a great, better for you food option. So for example, my question to you is, you go out and you want to get your hormones, and it's a kind of Spanish charcuterie, and there are some options in New York. But the question is, are you getting the best possible product? How does that get impacted, or translated better, not impacted, translated when it's not in Spain? So for me, I'm curious, you dove into this? Did you dive into it? Because you felt like your culture wasn't represented in the US.
Aaron Luo: To a certain extent, yeah. Just to kind of take a step back and just get a little bit of a background story on how we started Mercado Famous. So both Carmen and I, who's my Co-Founder, her name is Carmen Chen Wu, we're both Chinese but both grew up in Spain. She was actually born and raised in a town, east of Spain called Valencia, which is a coastal town of Spain. AndI was raised in Madrid, which is the capital. And for those of you who don't know about Steiners culture, it's a wonderful country, it's a wonderful culture. For those who have been there, you can know that there's the siesta, and there's the families, there's the value in food. And food has always been something that brings people together. And what's interesting is that before even diving into the product itself, one of the things we always felt that we miss right after living in New York, in the States for over 20 years is that moment with family and friends. Funnily enough, the story I always love to tell is that when we go out for dinner, in Spain, you go out dinner around 10 ish, maybe 9:30, 10:00 o'clock in the evening, you start with the appetizers, your food, your drinks, and they have desserts. The whole thing, it's about a three hour ordeal. Funnily enough in the States, even if for celebration, we will go out and actually have a meal, the whole thing probably will last 45 minutes. Immediately after the dessert, it's like, well, that's the chicken bounce. It's not just about eating the food, it's about enjoying it.
“Success for us is not to sell more products. It's to share how we grew up with in terms of culture and family and utilizing food as a vehicle to bring people together.” —Aaron Luo
So you touched on culture, that culture we missed, happens that we grew up with charcuterie. Jamon is something that's very representative of Spain. It's one of our hero products when I think about overall Spanish culture and the Spanish cuisine overall, and we just struggled with finding good charcuterie in the US from Spain. What we found was either really expensive stuff that was really great but too overpriced, or we felt that what we found was, I want to call it cheap but more economical, but the quality wasn't really there. And we dug into a space a little bit deeper was a hate. You know what? There's actually something to be said here to bring something that is non ostentatious, good quality and still very accessible for the American culture or American consumers. So that's kind of how we started thinking through, starting Mercado Famous. But back to answering your question about culture, I think the cultural aspect of things was something that will really, really miss. Like I said in the beginning, success for us is not to sell more products. It's more to share how we grew up in terms of culture, family and utilizing food as a vehicle to bring people together. And that's kind of the overall message we're trying to tell with our brand.
Justine Reichman: That resonates a lot with me. Because to me, when I want to have friends and family over, I want to present a beautiful meal, and you're doing it over food, and you're connecting with friends and family. And to me, it's not about how quickly I can shuffle the food in my face, but rather to create a beautiful place to create something that maybe we'll talk about or that will be a way to a conduit to bring us together to our family. I mean, if you think about the holidays, for me, they are less about religion and more about the community and the people being brought together.
Aaron Luo: Couldn't agree more. It's a wonderful vehicle. Wonderful vehicle for bringing people together. I'll give you an example. So one of the products we sell, kind of break that down a little bit, and I'm jumping a little bit ahead. But if you think about the assortment, though, we're currently bringing in and we're in the process of expanding that, but we have slight meat. So they come in two answers, pre packaged, vacuum seal, very easy to open, they're easy to consume. So that's kind of the bulk, but we do bring one leg of jamon. We're gonna bring a few other varieties later on in the next few months. But the main one we currently have is our Serrania Jamon. The whole leg. The thing is between 15 to 20 pounds. And I kid you not, every single Thanksgiving in my house, I'm married now. My wife is American and we have a family come over. And of course, my friends and family, immediately after they come to the kitchen, the first thing they see is the jamon. The first thing they ask is, what is that? It's a wonderful conversation opener. And as the evening goes along, even after the big meal, you see the entire family slowly gravitate. Especially in the evening, slowly gravitate towards the jamon, drinking wine, drinking beer, drinking a cocktail and slicing the meat. It's not just the actual meat itself. To your point, the conduit. The vehicle to bring people together and have a conversation, could be about me, it could be anything.
Justine Reichman: I think I agree. And my friend's husband, he's from Spain, and they have one in their kitchen. I was like, I want this. I want this in my kitchen. And they have to slice that thing, the whole. There's like a thing that goes around it. Anyway, that's all I wanted. Last year I said to Tim, I want one of those.
Aaron Luo: Really, it's a great conversation opener. And honestly, looks pretty badass on the kitchen table.
Justine Reichman: I couldn't agree more. It's a showstopper. But honestly, it's unusual. At least in this culture, it's unusual. And the truth is, I love to get your curry when I go out. I mean, I used to be from New York, I remember when Italy first opened, and they have tons of different kinds of charcuterie there. And it was like the best game in town for what I knew. Going to get the salami with the cheese and the little packages at Starbucks.
Aaron Luo: It's very interesting. You bring up an interesting point. So we actually studied quite a bit about the Italian charcuterie industry versus the Spanish cookery. And not to kind of digress the conversation too much, but there was a lot to be learned actually about how the Italian cookery was penetrated into the American pantries. So a couple of things we learned, first of all, the overall category came into the United States not as individual brands, but as individual, as collectively categories. I think the category itself was very smart and very glad it was intentional or unintentional. But they first promoted the actual product itself, then they promoted the individual brands. So when you think about Italian charcuterie, we have some data around us. Most people don't actually think about brands right away. They think about the type of (inaudible). Salami, pepperoni and so on and so forth. So Spanish, there's a little difference. Yes, you think about the jamon. But you do think about this thing, brands. Because actually, there's a lot of art in terms of how you actually cure them itself.
Justine Reichman: My next question. So what do you see as the greatest difference between Spanish charcuterie and Italian cookery?
Aaron Luo: Again, for me personally, that's my personal opinion based on the data analysis we've done and based on all the years now that we've been embedded in this industry. There's a couple things. And again, probably just to try to compare, I know it's the apples to apples could really you're not comparing apples to apples, right? But just to kind of bring the comparison a little bit close to each other. I'm gonna take our jamon and compare that with the prosciutto. It's not fair to compare jamon with pepperoni because you're really not comparing apples to apples per se. If you compare some with prosciutto, I think it comes down to two things. One, it's the breed of the pig. And the second thing is how you raise them in terms of what they eat and how they're being bred. So let me break that down a little bit. In terms of breed itself, it's really the genes. We have several types of pig that we work with, but the main one that we work with is our Iberian pig. In Spanish, it is Iberico pig. It's a pig that is unique to Iberian peninsula, which is Spain and Portugal. And yes, you can export it.
Another fact, there are many other nations, vendors and brands that have tried to export that breed and try to raise that somewhere else unsuccessfully, for most part. But I think when I compare it to a Prosciutto di Parma, their pig breed is very different from the breed that we use. So that's one big comparison. And what that translates to is, look, the Iberian pig, at the end of the day, it's a very close relative to the wild boar. And what that does is that it's a very lean meat, and it's a pack that likes to roam around, likes to be outside. Okay, so that's the first thing I will say. And the second thing is how we raise them. So for Spanish, the pigs that we use and the farms that we often find that we work with, again, there's different varieties. But the main one that we use, they actually live the last month of their life roaming free in the valley where we were eating acorns in a pretty exclusive way. And what that does basically is the animals end up tasting what they end up eating. So because they eat acorn for the last period of their life before they're sacrificed, they bring that very nerdy umami flavor to the overall meat itself, which is very different from the prosciutto that we're comparing to. And then in addition to that, prosciutto has a much younger curation. So it takes much shorter time to cure it, hence is a little bit saltier. The curation itself, it's a lot different in terms of the process. For us, we obviously don't use any preservatives.
Justine Reichman: I was gonna ask you about preservatives, nitrates, nightshade?
Aaron Luo: Nothing. The only thing we use is Mother Nature Climate. Our farm, it's actually located in a very strategic spot in Spain, where it's in the valley. So the actual air flows are in a very specific way. And the only ingredient we really use for the jamon is sea salt, that's the only thing we use.
Justine Reichman: So my question to you is, so often, when I look at the packaging and I go to the shops, I want to get some jamon, charcuterie or whatever, in all fairness, I don't always know where it's coming from right when I'm buying it. Maybe I haven't looked before if I'm being completely honest. But now that I'm having this conversation, I probably will take this information with me when I go shopping. But I've only seen a few places. One at the Farmers Market where they don't have the nitrates or the nightshades. And that's a big deal for me because I don't eat nightshade and nitrates. A lot of people don't. What is the impact of, or why do some people use this and other people don't? Does it change the flavor?
Aaron Luo: It changes two things. It changes the look and changes the preservation of the meat. So sometimes vendors or brands will use nitrate for their needs to have a better presentation to make the meat a little bit more red and a little bit more appetizing. The reality is that it depends on the nitrate. Most of the time, if you're gonna use it, you use it in sausages. Not in prosciutto and not in jamon, but more in cased sausage itself. But again, it's mainly for two purposes. One is poor presentation because there are sausages depending on how to prepare them, depending on the need and so on. So for that, if you don't use nitrate, it doesn't look really appetizing. It really doesn't. I mean, I've seen that before. And I really don't want to eat that. I don't care how good it is. I don't want to eat that. So brands and vendors use nitrate to have a better presentation. The second thing is conservation. So they want to use preservatives, it actually can last longer. For us, we actually use a very specific vacuum seal technology that relies more on the vacuum or the sealing of the actual packaging once it is sliced versus letting the preservative do this own thing. So that's the reason why we don't want to touch nitrate in our products. But there's one point that you brought up, which I thought was interesting, which is where does the pig come from. I think often, we don't ask that question. Because it's like, well, pig, it's a pig. I don't care where it comes from. If it tastes good, it's good. And that often is not the case.
And again, I'm geeking out a little bit because I'm in this industry, I'm passionate, and I love what I do. The reality is that the reason we ended up forming Mercado Famous and working with a farm that we did it because we actually can trace back to the great, great, great grandfather of the pigs that we actually use because the lineage is so defined. And that's important to watch. It's important to us because we can confirm that these are healthy pigs. There's no diseases, there's no nothing. It's not going to harm the human, the people that we're going to be consuming them. It's going to guarantee quality, the specific type of pigs that we like in terms of how lean they are, or the muscle or fat percentage ratio. And it's something that we actually take very seriously. To your previous question, what's the difference between our products versus other products in Spain? A lot of the mass produced jamon or charcuterie brands, they don't source from a single farm, they don't source from a single place. A lot of them are communes, if you may. A lot in our communities. And look, I'm not criticizing that. I'm simply stating the facts.
Justine Reichman: And I hear you. And my question is, how does that affect their consistency? Their ability to create a product that consumers go to get it, they know that they're always going to consistently have a good product.
Aaron Luo: Sometimes, it's chemical products. Because if the raw material is not consistent because you're not sourcing from one single source, you're sourcing from the community of different farmers, to your point, how do you ensure the quality or consistency. The way they do it is by industrializing the entire process. So you get them through the entire conveyor belt. It's like a production chain. And if one batch is slightly less fat, more fat, more lean, whatever it is, they use chemicals. A lot of them do. I'm not gonna say names, but a lot of them use that chemical mix into the conversation to make sure that it comes out consistent at the end. Now, some consumers don't care, and they just want to pay these prices for certain products. We feel like the community that we're speaking to, and it turns out customers do care, they want to do our best job to educate them on the process.
“The more we have access to better products, the greater the demand is going to be because people are going to be able to taste the difference.” —Justine Reichman
Justine Reichman: Yeah, I think it's so important. I think what you're doing also will inspire other people to build better products too. Because the more we have access to better products, the greater the demand is going to be. Because people are going to be able to taste the difference, feel the difference, experience the difference. And the more we can showcase why you've made these choices and give people the information, they're in a place to make more educated or informed choices.
Aaron Luo: 100%. And it definitely comes from the consumers. Brands will do what the customers want. And as consumers, we don't hold brands accountable. They are always gonna go the route of least resistance. Well, it's almost how much I can get away without you complaining and within the price that I'm charging you. So I agree. I think our goal is, of course, again, to bring the best out of Spain. Bring the culture, but also just educate folks along the line. It's to say, hey, look, here's an alternative charcuterie that we're offering. Here's how we're raising the pig, sacrificing the pigs, preparing the meats, and how we bring into the United States. I don't want to say we're better or worse. That's not for me to say. But to your point, I think any conscious consumer, when they see the two things together, I think they'll probably will gravitate towards I think the latter in terms of care about the quality and care about that. So it's an important point.
Justine Reichman: Yeah, I agree. And you just mentioned that a company changes their trajectory or changes a product based on the consumer. And that's really what's key. And so curious, what feedback have you gotten from your consumers to be able to direct you in the direction you're headed?
Aaron Luo: Yeah. We're still young, so we're still in the process of gathering a lot of that feedback. I think a lot of that comes to education. We've had a lot of customers saying, well, I love the things that you guys are telling us. It's very informative. Tell us more. Get more information on the website. Do more events, or get more into the restaurant, or get more into the grocery store. Want to learn more about that. So we're taking that piece of feedback very specifically thinking through, how do we actually effectively educate the customers? I think that when they hear the story I just said, as far as how we think about farming and sustainability, and re raising our animals, and the railway and so on, so forth, people want to learn about that. Another thing that we've been thinking about quite a bit, which is very interesting is, would jamon from Spain ever go mainstream? And the reason I say that is because, look, to really have a scale in this business, we really hope at one point that we're going mainstream and be able to reach a broader audience. And ask interesting questions. Because look, when I asked you about Italian food, let's just play a little game here for a minute. If I say interesting, Italian food. Would you ever call Italian food ethnic? Pizza. Would you call pizza an ethnic food?
Justine Reichman: I don't think pizza is Italian anymore.
Aaron Luo: Right? I think it was very well adopted by the American people, by the American culture.
Justine Reichman: I think there's New York pizza, which has a culture. But being Italian, I've been to Italy. I ate other things other than pizza. That's not what I thought of when I went out to eat, to be honest to your point.
“Once you start thinking that ingredient more as a mainstream, the creativity starts flowing a lot more.” —Aaron Luo
Aaron Luo: I feel like Italian culture, I owe the cuisine, it's so well penetrated in a scalable way for American culture, that it's no longer ethnic. Let's put it this way. If it's ethnic, I think a lot less than Greek, Chinese, Mexican, Spanish, Egyptian. But then what's interesting is that when you look at the Italian charcuterie, the taste profile is similar. Of course, they're different based on everything I just mentioned before. But at the end of the day, the charcuterie taste profile is very similar. For the Mediterranean, there are some very distinct differences. But at the end of the day, you're selling your meat. My goal that we're thinking about a lot from the consumers that we'll be talking to, as far as feedback is, what are some of the effective ways we can try to go the route of making the Spanish food a little bit more mainstream and potentially changing the dialogue a little bit so that we can actually incorporate that into (inaudible)? Incorporate a Spanish charcuterie into pizza or make it an ingredient into pierogi from Poland. You know what I mean? Once you start thinking that ingredient more as a mainstream, the creativity stuff flows a lot more than just like, well, it's Spanish jamon. The only way you can eat it is by cutting it, drinking it with wine, and there's so much more to it. So we think a lot in those terms as far as how we educate our customers based on their feedback in making them more mainstream. Not just to sell more meat, but essentially incorporating the ingredient that's part of the other cuisines within the US, especially in countries like ours in the US, right? That is so international. So that's something we think a lot about based on that feedback that we've received from the customers.
Justine Reichman: It also sounds from what you've said that maybe not from the customers, but maybe from your perspective, that it would be nice to have this be penetrated by all the different cultures, so that it can be integrated into the recipes or into what people are preparing. This is not just jamon, this can be used with different recipes regardless of culture, regardless of ethnicity.
Aaron Luo: 100%. And I see that happening with a lot of other wonderful ingredients and products for our culture. Mexican culture, I will briefly talk about that in the beginning of the conversation, has so many different ingredients that are slowly getting penetrated in a wonderful way into other cultures. Adobo, for example. Or jalapeno peppers. My point is that I think the more you start introducing these ingredients into American culture and try to make it mainstream, we encourage and we want to celebrate that, make it into other cultures and other cuisines. So yeah, it's not gonna be overnight, but that's something that we definitely are aspiring to do.
Justine Reichman: Awesome. Thank you for sharing that with me. I want to go back to the beginning when you started this business. You have your partner who is also from Spain, and you felt like a little piece of you, I guess, was still in Spain and you wanted to bring it to the US so that you could share your culture and create more accessible cured meats. And so my question as a follow up to that, you had this idea, what did you do next? How did you take it from the idea and build out your company?
“The road of starting new brands and new businesses… is [about] finding the right product. Product is queen.” —Aaron Luo
Aaron Luo: I think the road of starting new brands and new businesses comes from somebody who, my family, are intrapreneurs. I come from a corporate background, but always had this bug, this intrapreneurship inside me. And the early days are hard. Any founder will tell you that early days are dark, they're lonely, they're cold, and it's fun. You wake up in the morning not really knowing what's going to happen, but it's scary. I think I kind of broke that down. For us, it was finding the right product. I think everything, I know that we touched on this a little bit early on. For us, the more we discover, because we come from a fashion background. I think I didn't mention this before. But one of our brands that we manage is a brand called Kara. We are in the luxury handbag space, another topic for another conversation another day. But within luxury fashion product design, it's very important to us. And product is everything. We always say the product is Queen. Product is Queen, product is queen. And unless your product design is unique and different, you're selling BS. Especially in fashion and luxury fashion. And the interesting thing when we started Mercado Famous was the more we dug into the CPG, Consumer Packaged Goods industry, the more we felt that, product was almost like a second thought. We felt that marketing, packaging, labeling design and graphic design on the different packages was far more important. I think for a lot of CPG brands than the actual ingredients, and the products and so on so forth.
“We want to make sure the product is different—not better, but different than what's out there.” —Aaron Luo
Now, to be fair, I think a lot of new brands are starting to change that a little bit more, which we applaud and celebrate. But especially when I look at mass brands, again, I don't want to name names here. But I guess I can say beverage. I'm just gonna pick on beverages, for example as a CPG brand. How much different is seltzer water? It really is not. If you think it is, you got full. Because it's all packaging. I'm selling water, I'm packaging water differently and selling you on the idea that you're drinking better water than the previous version. Anyways, long story short, we said enough. When we do this, we want to make sure that the product is different. Not better, different than what's out there. Even though the brand was launched in 2022, we spent a good two and a half years there.
Of course, COVID was in between to slow us down a little bit. But yeah, we spent about two and a half years really finding the right team that we want to invest in. And what's interesting is this. Before we landed on the current partner that we have, we actually found a few really great partners that we would love to have work with. The problem was that they were very small, and they had no scale. They had a farm, great recipe, great family, and loved (inaudible) the pigs, but they had 20, 50 Pigs. I can scale a brand with 20, 50 pigs is just not enough. How do you ensure that you can scale, but at the same time still have other ones in terms of taste, recipe, human practices, sustainable practices and so on so far. So that was really the hardest thing. Once we got that knocked out and kind of got very comfortable in terms of who we want to invest in terms of the supply chain partner, I don't want to say it was easy, but it was definitely more mechanical. So finding the right branding partner to actually help us bring our vision to life and putting pen to pencil insurance, our vision, finding the right distribution channels, we come from an E commerce background so that's kind of our bread and butter. So we knew how to use VPC from day one in terms of how we're going to distribute this thing to the world, if you may. But I think coming from a luxury fashion background, product quality, product uniqueness and differentiation through products was kind of our north star.
Justine Reichman: I think that's a really important message to share here because there's so many other founders that tune in or watch the video, and maybe ask themselves the same question, maybe struggling with creating that great product and focusing on the wrong thing. So I appreciate you sharing your insight and your struggles with that, because I think that it's something that can resonate with so many people in the space in building any business. Frankly, building any business.
Aaron Luo: I totally agree. And we have the opportunity nowadays. We're not old, but we have an opportunity to mentor other aspiring entrepreneurs or students, whether they're in design or whether they're in business. And I tell them, my number one thing is, what are you selling? What's your product? What's your value differentiation? Why should the world need another, whatever you're selling. And if you can have a compelling story of why your product or your service for that matter, it doesn't have to be a physical product. If you can really clearly articulate what that is, you're gonna have a business, you're gonna get chewed in the world. So that's our lesson. I don't know if that's right or wrong.
Justine Reichman: I think they're all important to share, because everybody's got a different challenge. Everyone comes to the table with different needs. And many times, whether it's a founder, or a researcher, or an investor, so many different kinds of opportunities come up, and they're not sure which way to go. And when they come to a crossroads hearing a story like yours may say, I really do need to focus on the product.. Product is really important. If I can get my product, then I can design after. But really, what's important is the product. And so hearing that from your perspective, I think, can really support others to do better for themselves and think about what's really important. I'm glad for me, that's important. I want to produce the best podcast ever. I want to be able to share stories from founders, researchers that are changing the future of food, giving us greater access to healthy food. And the minute I compromise on what I'm presenting, the minute I take a stand, and I tell you, this is better than that. I'm not doing what I set out to do. And when I am given guests or guests approach me, I have to make sure that they're delivering the right kinds of information. I don't have to agree with that, but I have to be able to curate the right kind of conversations. Because when people come to listen, they've given me their time, and I have to continue to be worthy of their time. If I give them stories and have conversations with folks that don't share these insights, I think I'm doing a disservice.
Aaron Luo: I totally agree. I totally agree. I always say this, and maybe it's the old school. Growing up in both China, also in Europe and in Spain, we have this thing in China that we say that we can smell BS from pretty far away if you often trade and as a brand person, as a product person these days. It's very funny. Because every time I discover a new brand, the first thing I ask myself is, is this a BS marketing brand that's basically selling me on their label? Or is this product truly unique and different and that I don't want to pay more? And I'm a value shopper. I like value, but I don't mind paying a little bit more if it's truly a unique product. Now, I don't want to pay more if it's a commodity. If it's a commodity, I want to have the cheapest possible. I'm getting it from Amazon.
Justine Reichman: Just to digress, and go back to when you decided to start this business, I know it hasn't been that long. But at what moment did you realize that this was a viable idea in business? What was that moment for you?
Aaron Luo: I tell you exactly the moment because I remember this specifically. First of all, because we operate different businesses to be fair, we weren't under the pressure of, we have to make X amount by this day. Otherwise, my cash ends and I gotta go back to corporate. Because I know that for many entrepreneurs, they're under the gun, and we were under their gun for our first set of businesses like that where it's like, hey, look, you got six months to bring this. And if you don't, either you sell the company or go back to find a job. We treated each other very much organically, which is good and bad in the sense that we didn't over invest.We made our mistakes. I don't want to say that we didn't go along the way when it comes to marketing, customer acquisition here and there, and so on and so forth. But we really wanted to study and learn. But to answer your question, when we realize that this is something that could be a viable business, I remember the specific time over 20 inbound retail stores called us and said, how do we carry your product? And bear in mind that the reason I say this particular moment really struck is because we started this business actually didn't want to do anything to do with wholesale. Because of our DTC and E commerce background, we initially said this business to be strictly DTC. Just because we know how to acquire customers effectively and we've done that for seven plus years with Kara and other businesses, we had the chance to mentor and watch everything from branding, shipping initially was all set to go DTC. And we did zero outreach when it comes to wholesale as far as like, hey, would you carry our product which is very different from other CPG brands? If you look at most of the CPG brands, they start with going mass and going the wholesale route. And then it's like, oh, maybe we should do, almost like an afterthought. And that's the moment that struck us.
We didn't do any advertising. We did a little bit of PR, but we didn't do a lot of advertising. And the fact that I think that a lot of these brands, and there were major brands, by the way. There were major retailers, there were specialty stores that perhaps don't have gazillion different stores nationwide, but they are what we call influencers in the respective community. So they might be in Boston, San Francisco, LA, and so on and so forth that might have one or two stores, but it gets what people in the 50 mile radius go there to buy specific things and trust their name. For those guys to reach out to us and say, hey, I trust in our tribal product somewhere, or I saw your product somewhere, or like to actually use your products, or carry your product. That's when we're like, okay, the product is starting to resonate with the people that we like. So that was a proud moment. We've had a proud dad moment. That was it. That was wonderful.
Justine Reichman: I would imagine getting that, seeing those emails would be, it makes my heart flutter. And I'd be so excited. I'd be like, I wouldn't know what to do next. I just know that there'll be a big smile. And I'd be like, okay.
Aaron Luo: And the forelimbs are not huge. We're not talking about gazillion.
Justine Reichman: Well, to that point, how many different products do you have?
Aaron Luo: So right now, we have six or seven products.
Justine Reichman: Are you working on going forward with some new skews to include?
Aaron Luo: Yep. We're looking to add a pretty exciting lineup of assortments coming up in the next few months. We are being regulated by the USDA. So our friends in the USDA did a really good job in terms of regulating the space and making sure everything is up to par. So we're going through that process as we speak. And yeah, hopefully knock on wood, in the next few months, we can present another addition to the assortment, which is very exciting.
Justine Reichman: Okay. So in the meantime, if people want to get your product, what's the best way to get it?
Aaron Luo: Well, I always say the main thing is to go to mercadofamous.com. That's when we tell our story, showcase our product. I have a lot of cool recipes that are not necessarily always 100% typical Spanish, there's a lot of fun things that we like to play with. So that's the best place to go to check out products. You can also check us out on Instagram, at mercadofamous.com. We share recipes, fun stories, and founder stories. You'll see me and my founder talking to our audience and sharing different things that come to mind. So it's a pretty organic and fun place. So that's the best place to find this.
Justine Reichman: I appreciate you joining me today. I can't wait to try the product. I need to get some of the product.
Aaron Luo: We wanna make sure we gotta get that right. Thank you very much.
Justine Reichman: Yeah, I appreciate that. I know that you have this new launch coming up, and we'd love to stay in touch so that maybe we could be part of that process and share it with our followers and listeners. I know that they'd be eager to see your next product come out and follow along with you.
Aaron Luo: We'd love to share that with you. Definitely, we'll keep you in the loop of destiny.
Justine Reichman: Awesome. Aaron, thank you so much for joining me.
Aaron Luo: Thanks again. It's been a blast.
