How I Did a 180 on Strategy to Bring My Cultural Brew to the Masses
WILDWONDER
South San Francisco, California Rosa Li, founder and CEO 2-year revenue growth: 875% Long hours of working in finance had taken a toll on Rosa Li’s health, and she decided that the thing to do was reboot her gut. She began brewing tonics her grandmother—who’d raised her in China until she was 12—used to make, steeping teas of medicinal herbs and infusing them with California farmstand fruits. She kept tinkering: adding prebiotic fiber, sweetening with monkfruit; adding probiotics. Eventually, it was delicious. Li, now 38, called it wildwonder, and launched in South San Francisco with meager funding but an ingenious strategy: Supply tech companies with her culturally refreshing brews before seeking funding for retail expansion. The first shipments to Uber and Meta were en route when the pandemic scrapped that plan.
“I totally flipped my strategy. Food service was shut down, companies were canceling their purchase orders. We never got paid for most. It was impossible to raise money, despite my finance background. I understand it; I was a solo founder with a CPG product with zero traction.
“But grocery stores were the busiest. So I pounded the pavement, all March through May, helping grocery store employees stock shelves, befriending them, trying to figure out a way in. I built a Shopify site; I got local distribution. By the end of the first year, I was in 100 stores.
“In early 2021, Shark Tank reached out. I didn’t reply;
I was very much focused on rebuilding the supply chain and making sure our manufacturing could scale. I diversified everything—Covid showed me the importance of this, down to having multiple sources for every ingredient—and I contracted multiple co-packers. I made sure we maintained our very high margins, so we have a high return on every dollar we invest. We expanded nationally with supermarket chain Sprouts. “A year later, I wrote back to
Shark Tank and said: ‘I know I’m fashionably late, but I’ve got a story for you.’ Guest Shark Tony Xu, who co-founded DoorDash, was also raised in China by his grandparents. He said he connected with how passionate I am about bringing more diversity and heritage to retail shelves.
“Today, we’re very close to being profitable, with revenue of more than $10 million, in more than 3,000 stores, and expanding nationally. We’re in a great position, because there’s a trend of functional sodas and of prebiotic healthy beverages, and we have unique botanical flavor profiles and cultural influence.
“After more than four years, I finally got to return to China to see my grandmother. She was able to taste what she inspired. And of course she made me more tea from her cabinet of herbs. I didn’t tell her, but mine tastes better.” –AS TOLD TO CHRISTINE LAGORIO-CHAFKIN