A founder answers

What's one underrated piece of advice for starting a consumer brand?

"Be naive — your naivety is your superpower." Ethan says this because in the early days you have no idea about risk, and that lets you just do things. Now he's "way too calculated," thinking about food safety, water activity and sanitised bench tops before launching a product.

The full answer

EY
Ethan Yong · Umami Papi
EP 20 · Founder and CEO, Umami Papi
Show notes ↗

"Be naive — your naivety is your superpower." Ethan says this because in the early days you have no idea about risk, and that lets you just do things. Now he's "way too calculated," thinking about food safety, water activity and sanitised bench tops before launching a product.

More from this episode

Back then he had no idea he had to register his kitchen with the council to sell product — he was just doing it without any council approval, treating it as a hobby. He admits you can't operate like that at his current level, but he misses the early days of figuring things out.