YouSaid · the spoken record

Che Wang

lines on the record: 72
first: 2026-04-16
most recent: 2026-04-16
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I think I agree. You can't make this. In the long term, especially if you're looking at trying to hit 200 grand in sales this year, that's just not possible. I'm sure you're hiring some people part-time to help you fill jars and label them and ship them out. But it's just not sustainable. I mean, you've got to really find somebody who can make them for you. And what you want to focus on right now is locking down the formula. Now you may have already done that. But if you haven't, you really want to finalize your exact formulation because when you go and work with the co-manufacturer,”
2026-04-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chieh Huang of Boxed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That I make everything myself. So, my initial reaction is geez, your number one job right now is to make sure this thing can scale so the wheels don't fall off in the coming months. If your orders are late, if they're substandard, that's an Alec problem. That's a surfing cow problem. That's not a customer problem. They don't want to know that, oh, so many other folks like this brand that I can't get it anymore. Or it takes two weeks to get it. Getting the working capital to actually potentially begin professional manufacturing of this product that's something you're going to have to figure out and figure out pretty quickly.”
2026-04-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chieh Huang of Boxed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I feel like All my friends make fun of me still because they'll call me. They're like, are you in surfing Cow HQ? Which is just my house. And they're like, are you cooking? I call, you know, cooking because I make everything myself.”
2026-04-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chieh Huang of Boxed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This is really interesting, guy. I'm really glad you invited me because learning about these companies is fascinating. And Alec, I just closed my eyes and I couldn't help but feel jealousy that you're next to a beach and I'm here freezing in New Jersey. But man, I mean, it seems like you're starting to catch lightning in a bottle. When Guy kind of like clarified the revenue number, I was like, wait, can you say that again? And you just started? That is pretty wild. And I'm just wondering what happens if literally 3,000 orders comes your way tomorrow. I feel like your neighbors are going to be really angry and you're going to be usurping their kitchens.”
2026-04-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chieh Huang of Boxed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I love that. I'm looking at your website and you've got to break down how much it costs you to make each unit, which is amazing. Obviously you sell it for more than what it costs because you got to make a profit. But that's really cool. So, all right, so you are on track to do about $200,000 this year in sales, you think”
2026-04-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chieh Huang of Boxed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Cool. All right. Tell me a little bit about how the business is doing right now. You are making it yourself, or you have an outside manufacturer.”
2026-04-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chieh Huang of Boxed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Wow, okay, so this is really interesting because this is very, it's certainly unusual, right? It's skin stuff and sunscreen made with beef tallow, which we're living in a beef tallow moment, as you know, right? We're at a beef. Everybody's talking about beef tallow this and frying and beef tallow.”
2026-04-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chieh Huang of Boxed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In both products. Okay, so the beef tallow basically, how do you turn beef tallow into, I guess it's soft, right? Yeah. Yeah.”
2026-04-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chieh Huang of Boxed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Thank you. That's why we do it. That's why we get people like Che on the show, and they all come back because they want to do that. They want to serve you guys and give you the best advice they can give you. And that's all about building. So, all right, Alex, so surfing cow, I'm assuming you're a surfer, right? Yeah, right. Yeah. Okay. And it's a skincare brand. So like moisturizer, tell me what you sell.”
2026-04-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chieh Huang of Boxed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“All right, let's bring on our first caller. Welcome to the advice line around the Cheng Wang, founder of Boxed. Tell us your name, where you're calling from and a little bit about your business.”
2026-04-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chieh Huang of Boxed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, the company's called Pelgo, P-E-L-G-O. My co founder in this company is a gentleman named Frank D'Souza, whom I met at the World Economic Forum. He co-founded and was a CEO of Cognizant, which is now like a fortune 200 or 300 company, founded in the 90s. And so basically we had this thesis that there's going to be not only job destruction in America because of AI, but also job creation.”
2026-04-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chieh Huang of Boxed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. Someone I had known for a while, who's a recruiter called and said, I've got the perfect job for you. And I said, I think you're full of it. And he's like, why? And I said, you're a recruiter. This is exactly what you say about every job. And he said, that's true, but this one is really compelling. And it ended up being at the World Economic Forum. So being able to get that, I guess that point of view on kind of macroeconomic conditions around the world and being able to meet interesting people from around the world, both in the private and public sectors, really helped me incubate this next idea, both from an idea perspective, but more importantly from a co-founder perspective.”
2026-04-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chieh Huang of Boxed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, I know you presumably took some time off, but I think you did some interesting things afterwards did a stint with the World Economic Forum, I think. And now you are starting up a new company. Tell me about it.”
2026-04-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chieh Huang of Boxed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So BlackRock ended up buying that and owning that. And then the e commerce business, unfortunately, was shut down, but has since been resurrected. But I have nothing to do with the box that has been resurrected today.”
2026-04-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chieh Huang of Boxed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“For sure. First and foremost, any decision, especially business decision in life, could I have done better? And we probably need 10 hours of tape in order to go through all the things that I feel like I personally could have done better. But hindsight's 2020. With that said, the macro factors were really tough. So we were coming out of COVID. We were a new issuance of public stock in the New York Stock Exchange. We were unprofitable. Small-ish cap. So we were a little bit above a billion in terms of market cap. And e-commerce COVID story. And so that was really tough. And as your stock price starts to go down, people get spooked. Your vendors get spooked and everyone gets spooked. And so we still had, what, almost 20 million dollars cash left in the bank, but collectively, we decided the best kind of path forward was boxed was to sell our software business.”
2026-04-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chieh Huang of Boxed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Love that, you know, it's interesting because a lot of people write in and say, why don't you guys focus on companies that didn't make it, that failed? But of course over 10 years of doing this show, we've had some companies that aren't around anymore. It happens. You know, there are a variety of reasons. I mean, in your case, there were probably macroeconomic challenges and competition from Sam's Club and Costco and other big box retailers. Ultimately, in your view, Was there anything that you could have done or could have been done differently to have prevented bankruptcy?”
2026-04-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chieh Huang of Boxed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it's been a wild traumatic, I would say decade since the founding of Boxed. But if we had a time machine and we traveled back to my parents' garage and we told that person, that story about what will happen in the next 10 years of our journey and my life, I would say sign me up now because the people I've met, the people we've helped, the things I've learned, I just wouldn't trade it for the world.”
2026-04-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chieh Huang of Boxed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Unfortunately, by 2023, you guys filed for bankruptcy, which I'm sure was extremely difficult. I mean, the story of building boxed and the success you guys achieved was amazing. And I'm sure just what happened was so hard. I mean, I have a million questions for you, but first of all, What was it like for you just personally going through that? Because I can't imagine it was easy in any way.”
2026-04-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chieh Huang of Boxed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, you, Che, you were first on how I built this in 2021. And as always, if you guys haven't heard that episode, we will put a link to it in the show notes. But basically 2013, you launched Boxed, which was an online bulk retailer that you could get toilet paper and laundry detergent. And I think it was like 500 of the most common household items, products, foods that people would buy. I remember you talking about packing up boxes and pallets of boxes coming to your parents' garage in New Jersey. And you guys sent out tens of millions of these boxes of groceries around the country. Since then, Boxed went public in 2021 and ran into some difficult times after the pandemic ended. Oh, yeah.”
2026-04-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chieh Huang of Boxed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And when you're ready to launch, you offer code built to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Loans issued by Celtic Bank and serviced by Stripe. All loans subject to credit approval. And welcome to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Ross. This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges each week. I'm joined by a legendary founder, a former guest on the show, who will help me try to help you. And if you're building something and you need advice, give us a call and you just might be the next guest on the show. Our number is 1-800-433-1298. Leave us a one minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions that you'd like help with. All right, let's get to it. Joining me this week is boxed co-founder Che Wang. Che it's so great to have you back on the show.”
2026-04-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chieh Huang of Boxed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
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2026-04-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chieh Huang of Boxed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, one of my favorite parts of traveling is getting a feel for a neighborhood, the way locals do. A few summers ago, I was in Rome and stayed in an apartment I booked on Airbnb. It was tucked in a quiet neighborhood just outside the Roman forum. Every morning I'd walk to the corner cafe, grab an espresso, and just watch the world go by outside. I even managed to chat with the owner about the neighborhood he lived in for nearly forty years. And he got me thinking about my own neighborhood. There are incredible hiking trails and great restaurants and, of course, the beach. And when I'm traveling this summer, listing my own place on Airbnb could be a really smart way to let someone else experience the area the way I do, like a local. Listing your home on Airbnb while you're traveling is a great way to make some extra money. You could put the money toward your next trip. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much”
2026-04-16 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chieh Huang of Boxed · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT