How Fly By Jing Turned Chili Crisp Into an 8-Figure Brand

0:00Jing Gao:The reaction to these flavors were really universal. People's eyes would pop wide open. Oh my God, what is this?

0:10What happens when you reclaim your identity and let flavor tell your story? Jing Gao fused self-discovery with bold entrepreneurship, launching Fly by Jing from Kickstarter roots to a now eight-figure flavor revolution. Iconic chili crisps, sauces, and noodles can now be found in 12 ,000 stores nationwide at places like Target, Walmart, and Whole Foods Market. Jing is changing how the world experiences Chinese flavors. With 70 % of shoppers tasting Asian hot sauce for the very first time, this movement is rewriting the rules of food, culture, and brand building. I'm Serena Smith, and this is Shopify Masters, your companion for starting and scaling a business.

0:46Jing, thanks so much for being here today.

0:48Jing Gao:Thanks for having me. Take us into the world of Chili Crisp. When were you first introduced to it, and what role did it play in your life growing up? I think I must have been five, five or six. I grew up, so I was born in Chengdu, which is the capital city of Sichuan province, the food capital of China. And it's known for its spicy cuisine. And that is usually like, you know, takes the form of chili oil. Every family has their own, you know, different style of chili crisp because most families make their own. You don't, it's rare that you buy it. And then they kind of put their own accent on it.

1:26Jing Gao:And so, you know, growing up, we always had it in the fridge. And yeah, it was just kind of a part of every meal. And tell me about the restaurants that you would go to growing up in China. Yeah. So every time we would get together as a family on the weekends, we would go out to eat at these street stalls doing – Sichuan is really famous for street snacks and comfort food and stuff. And so they would be served at these restaurants called fly restaurants. And these are really bare bones, hole in the walls that are usually family run, you know, sometimes hidden down alleys, but hard to find. But somehow, you know, Sichuan people will always be able to find the most delicious spots.

2:10Jing Gao:And so they're called fly restaurants because they're so delicious. They attract people like flies. Fun. I love that. You didn't stay in China for the entirety of your childhood, right? No, so I was born there, but my dad was a professor at the time. And so he was traveling a lot for work, and eventually we moved as a family to Europe. So we moved around quite a lot growing up. I think we were in every country for just about a year, and then we would move to the next one, usually a different language, different culture. And then eventually we ended up in Canada. But, you know, every couple of years we would go back and, you know, see our family in Citron and load up on the delicious food.

2:55Jing Gao:You moved every year. That is incredibly intense. Yeah, until like high school almost. Wow. I mean, there's something to be said for probably what it contributed to your palate and your culinary sensibilities. But that is also incredibly difficult as a kid. Yeah. I mean, I don't think I really appreciated just how, you know, the toll that it had on me. I think it was just the norm for me. But it was definitely kind of weird, like every year saying goodbye to friends that you made and then being like, okay, probably we'll never see this person again. And then having to make new friends. And, you know, at the time in Europe, especially, you know, we lived in Germany, England, Austria.

3:38Jing Gao:I was often the only Asian kid. It definitely, you know, made me want to assimilate however I could and not stand out. As a kid, you never want to be the odd one out, right? And so pretty early on, I learned to, like, try to blend in, you know. Yeah. I moved a lot as a kid also. And I was raised by a single mom. I'm half Persian, but my father was never in the picture. And I went through a similar thing where it was just like, I'm white passing. It felt so much easier to just cover it up for a really long time. And it wasn't really until like deep in my adulthood that I was like, oh, there's this like whole other piece of my identity that's like dying to come forth that I've like sort of engaged in this like erasure this like voluntary erasure around.

4:28When did you find your way back?

4:31Jing Gao:It was kind of a long meandering kind of route. But I, well, I think what was good was, you know, I spent most of my formative years in Canada where it was quite diverse, you know, and I went to college there. And I ended up with an opportunity to study abroad in China. And so I I found myself in China in my early 20s and really was shocked by how modern and amazing and dynamic it was. And I had become so removed from it. We'd only go and visit our family in the summer. So being in a dynamic city like Beijing and Shanghai, I was really surprised and loved it and fell in love with the energy. so I ended up finding my way back there with a job and that was kind of when I started to really, you know, reconnect with my roots, peel back the layers a bit and, you know, kind of try to find, figure out my identity and, yeah, and surprisingly, like, food became this vehicle for me to do so.

5:41So how did the exploration of food contribute to that?

5:45Jing Gao:Yeah, so I think I just, like, you know, it started out, as just being really curious, eating, you know, everything I saw. Beijing is really interesting as it's the capital and there's all these like provincial government offices that have buildings in Beijing. And the officials from those provinces would come and work there and they wanted food from their hometowns. And so they would bring in these chefs and they would all operate restaurants that are open to the public. So you can actually go and enjoy the cuisine from all these different provinces. And that was the first lesson was how diverse Chinese cuisine is.

6:23Jing Gao:I think in the West - Like it was a shock to you. It was a shock to me, yeah. Because in the West, Chinese food is flattened. And you think of it as only one thing. And especially in America, right? It's Chinese American cuisine is its own evolution. And whereas in China, you realize, wow, this place is massive. It's like a continent. And every region is like a different country and how different it is from the others. and you know so that was like a really amazing display so in one city in Beijing you could actually go around and eat like dozens of different wildly diverse cuisines and it's like the most authentic version that you can get in these government offices so that's kind of you know it just started out as curiosity I was like wow this is delicious it's so layered and then I had a friend who ran food tours in Beijing and I started doing food tours for her.

7:17Jing Gao:I like, you know, tagged along, learned a lot and started leading these tours. And that, you know, got me deeper into, you know, the history and the heritage behind these cuisines. And, you know, I think I I was really interested in it also as a form of self-discovery and eventually like self-expression as well. But, you know, I think when I was learning about all of this just through eating it, I realized I also wanted to share it with the rest of the world. You know, I had a blog at the time and it was one of the few blogs, you know, back then that wrote about Chinese food culture in English.

7:59Jing Gao:and so I just started sharing what I was learning and eating and and then that became more of a mission to me for me later on to just like you know shine light on on this incredible culinary heritage. And you found that that blog was resonating right away? I mean I don't know I don't know how many people really read it but it definitely reached a lot of food folks and you You know, I would have like celebrity chefs who would film in China reach out and, you know, had me as a guide on their shows or, you know, help produce, you know, their TV shows and stuff. So I think it definitely reached like a kind of a foodie audience.

8:41Jing Gao:Yeah. You had originally been sent back to China as an adult. You were pursuing business at the time. And then eventually you left to open up your own restaurant, right? Yeah. That transition sounds crazy to me, knowing the extent to which the restaurant business is no walk in the park. I mean, what felt like it was so worth it to you that you had to do it in that moment? Yeah, so I had a tech job that actually brought me to Asia. But it was great because it allowed me to travel a lot all over Asia and I had a lot of free time on the weekends and stuff. So I would just eat and explore. But I think, you know, as I was writing more, sharing more, doing more kind of like projects, food media, like side projects, I started realizing this is where my passion really lies and that I wanted to devote myself full time to it.

9:35Jing Gao:I didn't know what it was going to be. I just knew that I wanted to spend more time on it in order to find out. And so I like had saved up a little bit of money from my job. And so I quit without a plan. and jump right into the deep end. Because I think I realized I was like that. If I didn't have a safety net was the only way that I could just take that plunge. Yeah, you've got to have that sense of urgency. Yeah. And eventually I met a business partner who also had this desire to start a restaurant. And what I was noticing at the time was that fast casual restaurants in the US were really taking off like the chipotles and the sweet greens.

10:17Jing Gao:And I was really inspired by that model, but I wanted to apply it to modern Chinese cuisine. At the time in Shanghai, that wasn't really a thing. It was either like, you know, big restaurants or mom and pop shops and nothing kind of in the fast casual in between. It also helped that we didn't know what we were doing and we didn't know how difficult it was going to be. So we were like, why not us? You know, so. So it grants this bliss. Yeah. Okay. So you launched this restaurant, which ends up doing really well and winning, winning awards. At that point, can you see in your future that you have a product line that's maybe coming to form or how does Fly By Gin come to be from there?

11:00Jing Gao:Yeah. So, so definitely not. I had no idea, but, um, you know, that restaurant was successful. It was, we had it for about two years. And, you know, as with most kind of first-time businesses, I had a falling out with my business partner. We ended up parting ways and learned a ton of lessons from that experience. And I ended up, you know, I wanted to go even deeper, you know, into Chinese food and particularly Sichuan food, which is where I'm from. So I actually just picked up and moved back to my hometown for a bit, which is Chengdu. It's southwest China. Spent some time there. And I was staging or learning from this incredible chef there who is one of the most famous master chefs in China.

11:50Jing Gao:And he was kind enough to take me under his wing. And I spent a lot of time just absorbing everything he had to teach. And he has this like deep respect for ingredients, especially from Sichuan. And so he would go on these like sourcing trips where he would find the highest quality like peppers and the highest quality like fermented bean pastes and all kinds of beautiful ingredients that were really, you know, I think that's when I learned to appreciate the quality of ingredients and how they really affect flavor. and that, you know, as consumers who are just kind of peripherally consuming food, we don't really think about, you know, that and all that goes into what you eat, I think.

12:42Jing Gao:You know, but when you're working with those ingredients, you really see just how impactful they are. And, you know, the highest quality ingredients are actually inaccessible to most people, right? Because you can't just buy it from a grocery store. The stuff that makes it on shelf at grocery stores, I realized, were generally kind of more mass quality. And it's that way because it has to fit a certain price point, which tends to be cheaper, right? And so the highest quality ingredients were really rare. And they were also snatched up by these top chefs, you know, the moment that they're available.

13:26Jing Gao:So you really have to develop those relationships over time to be able to access those ingredients, even within China. Right. And then I started noticing that, you know, in the West, the highest quality stuff would really never make its way there, you know, for many reasons. But I just, I think, really developed an appreciation for really high-quality ingredients and started cooking, you know, my own version of these flavors and started this underground supper club. And I named it Fly by Jing because it was a nod to the fly restaurants that I grew up with and loved. And I loved the energy and the flavors.

14:08Jing Gao:I wanted to bring it to life in my pop-up dinners. And so, yeah, that's kind of how I started cooking my version of modern Sichuan food. And eventually that led to this line of products today. Well, but then how did the product come to be, Jay? Tell us. So I started doing this series of pop-up dinners. And I was invited to cook with chefs all over the world. I would do pop-ups in like as far away as New Zealand, Australia, Japan, New York, LA. And I would have to travel with my ingredients with me because they're obviously not available anywhere else and they were integral to the flavors, right?

14:54Jing Gao:And so I would, you know, pack suitcases full of ingredients. Eventually, I started, you know, pre-batching some of the sauces that would go into my dinners and into my dishes. And I would notice that, you know, the feedback or the reaction to these flavors were really universal. Like people's eyes would pop wide open. They'd be like, oh, my God, what is this, right? No matter where in the world you live. No matter where, yeah. So, you know, it's not just flavors that I grew up loving. Like people really appreciated these flavors, even if they had never heard of them, never accessed them. And so I started thinking about how do I make this more accessible to people?

15:41Jing Gao:And, you know, I was pre-batching some of these sauces and, you know, Sichuan is famous for flavor profiles. There's dozens and dozens of flavor profiles that Sichuan chefs can create with like just limited amount of ingredients. And a lot of the times those flavor profiles are in the form of sauces. And so I was already, you know, pre-batching some of these to take with me on these trips and guests would ask for, you know, the chili oils and the sauces later on. And so I started making it in my kitchen in Shanghai and selling it locally in China. And it was quite popular. And I was, you know, there was this like kind of idea in my head, you know, what if I skilled this?

16:20Jing Gao:What if I brought it to, you know, the West? And in 2018, I was with a friend in California just traveling. And, you know, she's also in the food world. And we decided to go to this trade show called Expo West. It's the largest natural food trade show. It's huge. For like a food lover, it's like heaven. It's incredible, massive, right? It's across several convention halls. And thousands and thousands of brands are showcasing their products. And the people that go to the shows are often like the buyers of grocery stores like Whole Foods and Target and so on. And I remember walking through this show because it's multi-days.

17:04Jing Gao:It's massive. and just sampling everything as I was going. And at the end of like the three or four days, I remember feeling like, huh, that was weird. Like I kind of have a craving for Asian food for some reason. Oh, it's because I haven't had any Asian flavors this entire week. And total dearth of offerings. Yeah, yeah. And not only was like the brands represented not diverse, like there were barely any Asian food brands. also just like the buyers and the whole ecosystem of people there was it was lacking in diversity and I remember being quite shocked by that and also you know from kind of industry reports I was reading I was seeing that you know spice you know flavors with a lot of heat and also multicultural flavors were where a lot of the growth in natural food was going like not only was there kind of a lack of Asian food brands.

18:03Jing Gao:You know, a lot of the Asian brands that were in the market, you know, only lived in Chinese grocery stores and were not all natural, right? Like there was a lot of preservatives and, you know, flavor, artificial flavors and stuff added in order to get the price low, right? And so that was kind of this observation that I had. And I started thinking, well, what if, you know, the quality of the stuff that I was making in China, I could bring here at scale. So that was kind of the beginning of that idea. And it took a long time still to be able to figure it out. And like, how do I scale this thing?

18:47Jing Gao:How do I produce it? How do I maintain the quality while scaling a production? So. Right. Right. Well, trying to build a business that's actually profitable. Because you ended up doing a Kickstarter campaign. Crowdfunding is obviously not what it used to be, but it went gangbusters, right? Yeah. Yeah. So when I went back to Shanghai, I was like, okay, well, how do I do this? I had no idea. I started looking into manufacturers, but the minimum runs were so high and I was running out of money by that point. And I realized that in order to produce this, I'm going to need to, you know, raise some money.

19:24Jing Gao:And I didn't know any investors. My friends and family don't have, you know, that kind of money. And so I had some friends that did Kickstarter. And I realized it was a really great way to not only, you know, you know, raise the funds, but also, you know, test out, drive the marketing story and see if there is demand for this, right? And what I love about Kickstarter is that it is kind of this microcosm, you know, where their backers are really supportive of entrepreneurs and understand that things don't always go as planned, especially the first time around when you're, you know, when you're building something.

20:02Jing Gao:And so there's a lot more kind of leeway that you're given to be able to figure things out. So it's not like when someone places an order, you need to deliver it within 48 hours. You can say like, hey, I'm going to need eight months to do this, right? But I need this cash up front. And so it's really pre-orders rather than like, like a GoFundMe or something like that. So yeah, so I made a video, you know, told my story about wanting to bring really high quality Chinese flavors to the U.S. and to show that, you know, Chinese food can be some of the highest quality, you know, most delicious foods out there that are healthy and also like that command value and to shift some of these narratives that existed in in the U.S.

20:46Jing Gao:for such a long time about Chinese food. And I think that message really resonated. I think it was the right time people were ready for a new paradigm about Chinese food. And was it resonating primarily with other Chinese people or was it resonating with a much broader demographic than that? I think it was most people. I think it wasn't just about Chinese food either. I think it was kind of this, the moment that people felt ready for all sort of previously marginalized cuisines and cultures to be seen more, you know, for what they are. And yeah, I mean, I think it is crazy that in 2018, there weren't any modern Chinese food brands.

21:29Yeah, it's this double-edged sword, right? Because it's like, on the one hand, it must have felt really gratifying. But on the other hand, you're like, it's 2018, and this is where we are, you know, like, I got to do something about this. It lights a fire under you.

21:41Jing Gao:Yeah, exactly. And so I think my Kickstarter was, yeah, the summer of 2018. And it went kind of viral and ended up, you know, raising, you know, I think it was one of the highest funded food projects on Kickstarter. You think? I think. I mean, I don't know. Maybe since then, you know, maybe someone has topped that. But it's, yeah, we had like, you know, 2 ,500 backers. And it was amazing to have that support. And those people became our earliest supporters. And it was through word of mouth through them that we started growing. Amazing. I mean, I think like the pre-order model, whether it's via crowdfunding or some other avenue is such a great way to prove product market fit because it's like not only are people saying I'm interested in this product, they're saying I'm interested in this product and I'm willing to wait for it.

22:38And in like an immediate gratification universe, like that's a big testament to the potential power of your brand, especially when it's a food product, you know? Yeah.

22:50Jing Gao:And I think just like Kickstarter backers are early adopters. They're, you know, trendsetters. They're people who believe in entrepreneurship and believe in supporting entrepreneurs. And that's a really supportive environment to like launch a business. Yeah. When you finally launched the product and you were doing it D2C for years before you moved into retail, which we'll talk about, you launched at a much higher price point than the other competitors in the Western markets. Maybe your Kickstarter supporters understood that, but I would imagine there was an uphill battle right out of the gate to convince people of its worth.

23:29How did you convince consumers that it was worth it to pay three or four times the price?

23:35Jing Gao:Well, I really highlighted just like the, you know, the rarity and the quality of the ingredients that we were putting in this product. You know, a kind of mass produced chili oil might have like three, four ingredients in it. And like one of them is like, you know, artificial additives and flavors. and you know whereas my chili crisp you know and we still have the same recipe as we did back then has like 18 ingredients in it and the umami the deep flavors in it are not you know through flavor shortcuts it's through building that umami with layers and layers of ingredients and also the element of time like we have ingredients in it that are fermented that you could not you know replicate without that time that it takes to go into it.

24:27Jing Gao:And also, this is a very small business, right, that you can't compare to the economies of scale of a billion dollar, you know, conglomerate that has the advantage of scale. So I think, you know, when people shop small, it does come at a higher cost because you're supporting that. So I think there was resistance because for the longest time, people were so used to seeing Chinese food in that mass produced format, right? Where that low price point, which was out of necessity, which was because for the longest time, you know, Chinese companies were told that Americans would not accept Chinese food that cost more than like $2, right?

25:11Jing Gao:So of course, they're not going to put anything of quality in it. But I think this was introducing like a new paradigm that Chinese food, Chinese culture, Chinese people really have value that is worth paying for. Yeah. Hearing you say, you know, that you were told that American audiences wouldn't accept Chinese food past a certain price point feels really loaded to me. Like it does feel like, oh, you're saying something that's not just about the food at that point. You know, we're saying something more deeply about the value of a cuisine, a culture, a group of people. Yeah, absolutely. So at the time, I think it was around the same time there was a book that was published by a sociology professor at NYU called The Ethnic Restaurateur.