YouSaid · the spoken record

Koel Thomae

lines on the record: 86
first: 2024-11-25
most recent: 2024-11-25
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

“No, I really felt like that had no connection to Colorado, to the US. No one would have any understanding of what Queensland is. But I wanted it to have a link back to its Aussie heritage. And the family, the recipe, it all comes from the Sunshine Coast. And I was like, well, what are some of the beaches on the Sunshine Coast? Noosa. I was like, okay, it's easy to say it's not very long. ties into the storytelling this is the name so you know it took a little bit of convincing but finally everyone agrees it's Nusa”
2024-11-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Noosa Yoghurt: Koel Thomae · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it essentially sustained my family while I was getting news off the ground. And we were in sort of this little co-working office with a few other consultants. So they sort of became my in-house advisory board.”
2024-11-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Noosa Yoghurt: Koel Thomae · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“At this point, I had actually left Izzy. I had gone to work with one of my Izzy alums who had started another company called Snickety.”
2024-11-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Noosa Yoghurt: Koel Thomae · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Not really. I think I was so excited by this opportunity. And, you know, I grew up where I didn't have a lot of money as a kid, but my mom always prioritized experiences over things. I've always been a hard worker. So I just felt like if it Went up in flames. I could always get a job again.”
2024-11-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Noosa Yoghurt: Koel Thomae · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I had some of that money. Had a chat with my mom and my stepdad, so they were on board. They had tasted the product. They were believers. And then the Matthewsons and Rob. So we were the three sort of blocks of investment”
2024-11-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Noosa Yoghurt: Koel Thomae · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We would lease the space. From Rob, right? So that's cash, but it's not huge upfront costs. Australian family was willing to do a pretty minor lease on the product. Basically, it was a dollar license agreement. Because they wanted to be investors. And we were thinking about, okay, who are the retailers in Colorado? What's the opportunity set here? How much do we need to make to service this market? And sort of backed into this number of $400,000.”
2024-11-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Noosa Yoghurt: Koel Thomae · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly. But he's like, Yeah, we can do it. So then as we, you know, the conversation sort of continue, we realize it probably makes more sense for him to come on as a...”
2024-11-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Noosa Yoghurt: Koel Thomae · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, so he's immediately intrigued, agrees that this is a huge opportunity. He's like, you know, good timing, I'm in the process of designing and developing a new bottling plant for my fluid milk. He's like, we can probably add a little extra space to make yogurt”
2024-11-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Noosa Yoghurt: Koel Thomae · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think she froze like milk jugs. I mean, imagine this yoga gets to me, and it's probably not food safe at this point. But I go back up to the dairy to morning fresh, meet with Rob again, and I get him to taste the product. And at this point, he has the same taste moment that I did back in Australia.”
2024-11-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Noosa Yoghurt: Koel Thomae · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly. So then I call my mom, I ask her to ship me some samples. I don't even remember how we got them through customs because you can't technically ship dairy internationally.”
2024-11-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Noosa Yoghurt: Koel Thomae · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“About an hour north You know, he was generous to even have the meeting. I think he thinks I'm pretty crazy at this point because I don't have any product, right? Because tasting is believing.”
2024-11-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Noosa Yoghurt: Koel Thomae · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That I've discovered this amazing yogurt. I have a license to make it, and I'm looking for almost like a co-man or co-manufacturing facility that can help me produce it. And he's intrigued. He invites me up to the farm.”
2024-11-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Noosa Yoghurt: Koel Thomae · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Rob is the owner of Morning Fresh, fourth generation dairy farmer. You know, I sort of give him a little mini pitch on the phone.”
2024-11-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Noosa Yoghurt: Koel Thomae · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. And so I ultimately cold coal, getting really good at cold calling at this point. And I connect with Rob Graves, farmer Rob, as we like to call him.”
2024-11-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Noosa Yoghurt: Koel Thomae · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That just sort of gives a little blurb about their family story, how they're treating their cows, how they're growing their own feed. I do a little bit of research and realize that they're selling their bottled milk already at Whole Foods.”
2024-11-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Noosa Yoghurt: Koel Thomae · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly. But I don't see them as somebody that I can necessarily partner with until one day I'm at my local coffee shop and I see a flyer for this fourth generation dairy farm in Northern Colorado called Morning Fresh.”
2024-11-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Noosa Yoghurt: Koel Thomae · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I decided to pivot. I was like, okay, I can't do this by myself. I need a dairy expert. And so I sort of reached out to my network and I said, do you have dairy consultants? Do you have anybody that's in dairy?”
2024-11-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Noosa Yoghurt: Koel Thomae · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They want to kill people. You want to kill people with the I found out that I was even more ill equipped than I imagined. And, you know, this state health inspector is kind of like figures me out pretty quickly that I am completely green when it comes to dairy. And he asks me, do you even know what the PMO is? And I say, I have no idea what you're talking about. So the PMO is the pasteurized milk ordinance. And it is this volumous document that governs dairy, essentially. And he handed me a copy and sent me packing and said, don't come and talk to me again until you understand this document.”
2024-11-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Noosa Yoghurt: Koel Thomae · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Industry from the US to Australia, like way more regulated in the US. You know, the Matthewsons were pretty adamant that we would only be able to make this yogurt if we built our own manufacturing facility. And so I'm like, okay, I can figure this out, you know, thinking more small scale commissary kitchen, then ultimately realize I have to go talk to the state health inspector.”
2024-11-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Noosa Yoghurt: Koel Thomae · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, and just a junior position had just bought my first house. Yeah, it was sort of revolutionary to have this kind of money.”
2024-11-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Noosa Yoghurt: Koel Thomae · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it was. Would you consider licensing the recipe to me? And when you do an Aussie lunch, you definitely have some beers and they essentially said, look, yeah, we think there is an opportunity in the US. So we'd happily license to you. We'd want to invest in the business and we'd be happy to bring like a yoghurt maker over and just help with the initial startup of the business. This is from a three hour lunch and a handsh”
2024-11-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Noosa Yoghurt: Koel Thomae · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Matthewsons, so it ends up being K. The two sons and one of their wives we meet in my mom's beach apartment and you know I go back to I live in Boulder. It's this amazing food community and I said I really believe that the American palate is not that different from a Nazi palate. And there's just nothing like it. I said, you know, yogurt is growing as a category. I can attest to that from just having watched it over the past two years. And I think there's this amazing opportunity. And again, my vision wasn't to create this national brand. I just thought I could have this really cool Colorado-based company. And then I selfishly get to eat it more than once a year.”
2024-11-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Noosa Yoghurt: Koel Thomae · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Cool. I love that we told you that. I do too. So I actually have my mom call the second time. She definitely has the gift of the gab. And my mom organized a meeting with the Queensland Yogurt family.”
2024-11-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Noosa Yoghurt: Koel Thomae · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was that person. I mean, driving my husband crazy, driving everyone at Izzy crazy. I think when you're an expat, you become very nostalgic about things that you can't eat in your new home. And so I think that was part of it for me. But I just couldn't find anything that tasted that good, in my opinion.”
2024-11-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Noosa Yoghurt: Koel Thomae · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, I sort of embarked on what I like to describe as my yogurt PhD like I literally would go to my local Whole Foods. There was a guy working in the dairy section. His name's Joseph. He still works at my local Whole Foods. And he and I would just ruminate about like all the different brands and what did you think tastes the best? And then we started talking about packaging and, you know, we just had like very deep, meaningful conversations about yogurt.”
2024-11-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Noosa Yoghurt: Koel Thomae · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They were just coming onto the market. So I could see that there was a trend happening with Greek. But to me, it didn't taste as good as Queensai yogurt.”
2024-11-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Noosa Yoghurt: Koel Thomae · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so it's a whole milk yogurt. I mean, the best way I can describe it is eating velvet. It was just so creamy. And then it's infused with honey. And then that paired with the passion fruit was just this like beautiful, sweet sort of flavor opposition. And yeah, I couldn't find anything like it in Colorado.”
2024-11-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Noosa Yoghurt: Koel Thomae · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Know, I give her this sort of like mini pitch hey, I'm an Aussie expat, I live in Boulder, Colorado, it's amazing food community. Have you guys ever thought about doing anything with the US? She's like, no, we're way too busy. I was like, okay, well, you know, here's my email address. If anything changes, would love to hear from you. So I go back to Colorado, you know, having tasted this yogurt literally one time And I'm back in Colorado. I'm back working at ISI. And I start just looking for something that tastes remotely like this yogurt.”
2024-11-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Noosa Yoghurt: Koel Thomae · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Taste it. He's like, it's good, but it's just yogurt. And I'm like, hey, look, you don't understand. This is amazing. This is revolutionary. And so I end up calling my mom later that day and I'm telling her about this yogurt that I've just discovered. In Australia, it's called Queensland Yogurt. And throughout my whole life, my mom has been somebody to dare me to do things out of my comfort zone. And so she said, you know, You should call them. And I was like, and tell them what, that their yogurt's delicious? She's like, well, why not? Like, okay, you know, I turn it over. There's a phone number on the lid. And so I call and I end up connecting with this woman, K Matthewson. And it's the small family business. They've only been around for about 18 months.”
2024-11-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Noosa Yoghurt: Koel Thomae · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so I picked it up, turned it over. There's a label on the top of the lid, Discover it's yogurt. So I buy it and we walk back to my mum's apartment and I immediately try it. And it was one of those just stop you in your tracks taste moments. Like think about eating the best peach in the dead of summer or, you know, things like that where you're just like You don't want to think about anything else. And it was like that for me. So I'm like Hey, this is, you've got to taste this. This is like literally the best thing I've ever tasted.”
2024-11-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Noosa Yoghurt: Koel Thomae · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We were on the Sunshine Coast, so we had gone to the beach, we'd gone surfing, and we're walking back. We had stopped in at this little local corner shop. And, you know, back to my love of just perusing stores, I ended up in the back and there was a cooler. And there was this container which was clear. It wasn't really very apparent what it was, but I could tell that it had passion fruit in it. And in Australia, passion fruits are pretty actually traditional flavour. And for anyone that doesn't know passion fruit, when you cut it open is this vibrant orange.”
2024-11-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Noosa Yoghurt: Koel Thomae · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Was. And once I sort of had this epiphany that food was where I should be, I didn't really have any defined career role within food. I was like, I'll do anything just to get my foot in the door. And because I had been nomadic, my resume looked very spotty. And so it was probably over a year and a half of applying for every job that I thought I was reasonably qualified for before I landed my first food job at Izzy Beverage.”
2024-11-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Noosa Yoghurt: Koel Thomae · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so, yeah, so food was this sort of passion point for me, I realized. And here I am in the mecca of natural food. And I just decided I was like, I'm going to work in the food industry”
2024-11-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Noosa Yoghurt: Koel Thomae · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I wasn't initially food has always been the sort of common thread in my life from growing up and going to farmers markets. I think being raised by a single mom who just sort of had bigger expectations of me being independent and sort of helping. So I started cooking at a younger age. I'm a weird nerd. I like going grocery shopping. Like I like just cruising grocery aisles.”
2024-11-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Noosa Yoghurt: Koel Thomae · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so in 2000, I landed in Boulder and ultimately got a job working for this IT company thinking, again, that it would be this sort of Kickstarter to a real career. And realize pretty quickly that I was not very passionate about the IT world dying in a cube. But I loved living in Boulder. And I really wanted to stay.”
2024-11-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Noosa Yoghurt: Koel Thomae · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Everything that could go wrong was going wrong. We were literally hammering cash for this customer from spoils to the slotting fees. And finally, I was like, this is not working. Like, this retailer could sink the entire operation from a cash flow perspective.”
2024-11-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Noosa Yoghurt: Koel Thomae · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT