Lunchtime frustration with a vending machine stacked with unhealthy snacks inspired Walter Oh and Andrew Lim with the idea for a new business. But how to build it without a CTO? David Ongchoco picks up the story.
Pictured from left to right: The Boxgreen crew of Andrew Lim, Walter Oh, Fai Wong
Snack Better And Healthier
BoxGreen is building a personalized e-commerce brand for healthy, delicious and wholesome snacks currently going through the JFDI Accelerate program. With a goal of promoting healthier snacking to everyone, BoxGreen develops and delivers natural and healthy snacks straight to your doorstep or office desk every month.
Andrew shared, “We couldn’t find healthy snacks when we were hungry in the office. Everyone buys and snacks on junk like Oreos, chips, and chocolate.”
Walter added, “We had this joke that we would create a healthy food startup called ‘Andrew’s Nuts’. But when we did a Google search and only funny pictures came up for Andrew’s Nuts, we knew we needed another name.”
The name BoxGreen came from the idea of delivering something nature-ish and natural snacks in a box. Walter recalls talking with Andrew on the phone about the name then deciding to just do it and buy the domain right after.
Humble Beginnings
Walter recalls delivering the first hundred boxes of snacks by hand. He shared, “One of the people we delivered to was on behalf of a wife who was ordering a box as a gift for her husband. The husband is a tutor who worked late at night, and often skipped his meals everyday. When the box was delivered to him, it was really touching to see how the wife’s concern for his health was translated through the box of snacks. That was when we knew we were selling more than just nuts.”
Andrew also recalls the recent Father’s day box promotion BoxGreen had last weekend. He shared, “We launched a Father’s day box last weekend and it was decided in 30 minutes. We even did a tie-up with a local card company that created handwritten message with your handwriting. It was nice to provide that linkage and allow people to give something healthy to their fathers.”
Finding A Tech Guy
While Walter and Andrew initially started with a simple WordPress website with a Paypal button, they knew that it was important for the team to find a tech guy in house to bring the company’s vision of healthier snacking in Asia into reality.
Fai Wong, a serial startup developer, shared the same vision and ended up emailing Walter 3 months after BoxGreen was started. Walter recalls, “What were the chances right? We met and we things hit off well. We are really blessed to have someone who believes the idea as much as we do. It has been good since then, and Fai recently quit his job to join us full-time.”
With Fai on board, the BoxGreen team is now able to ship new features, test them then iterate faster than before.
Data-Driven Snacks
Initially, BoxGreen started out just as a Birchbox for healthy snacks type of startup, with samples sent to customers every month but they have since pivoted to create a more data-driven and custom approach to serving healthy snacks to their customers.
“As we started moving deeper down the value chain, we discovered a greater problem that manufactures have. The traditional snacks makers are not using the Internet to find out what customers really want today and consumer buying behavior are starting to change. There is a rising tide for healthy eating and people are more concerned about what they put inside their body.” Andrew said.
Today, when users first enter the BoxGreen site, they are able to view select an assortment of 30 healthy and natural snacks based on their nutrition and ingredients information. All snacks are natural with no preservatives and BoxGreen works with a nutritionist to come up with new snacks each month. BoxGreen has a direct-to-consumer approach and customers are able to give feedback and ratings on the system.
Moving forward, BoxGreen wants to make use of their data platform to help individuals make better snack recommendation based on their dietary goal and snacking habits.
Quitting Their Jobs
While BoxGreen started out as a part-time side project for Walter and Andrew, it was four months in when Walter decided that it was time to take the leap of faith, so one month after his 27th birthday, he decided to quit his banking job and go full-time on BoxGreen. However, quitting ones stable job for the startup roller coaster is always a hard decision and a case-by-case basis.
For Andrew, he would wait for a bit longer, before eventually deciding last January that he wanted to go all-in with BoxGreen as well. Once this was decided, BoxGreen decided go full force and join the JFDI Accelerate Program with Fai onboard.
Joining JFDI
One of the main reasons the BoxGreen team decided to join JFDI was because of the proven track record of JFDI in helping its startups raise additional rounds of funding afterwards. Fai emphasized, “The branding and connection to investors is there. There’s a really good network of people that JFDI provides.”
Andrew also shared, “I think JFDI has provided us with the discipline to really think critically of our business. Going through several rounds of pitch practice has also helped us articulate the business in our heads better. You face so many problems as a startup that JFDI helps you think about the overall business and strategy as well.”
Harder Than They Imagined
While running a startup has a lot of memorable moments, Andrew stressed how starting up is harder than he initially imagined. He shared, “Fundraising is hard. Our pitch wasn’t that good during demo day 1 so we’ve had to practice a lot and work on our pitch. Then you realize how time consuming it is to do that on top of everything else. You really have to manage your day to day.”
Walter recalled, “One year ago, I remember we were packing 80 boxes at 11pm then I walked to the post office across the street and realized they were close so I had to bring everything back home. Today, we’re still packing 500 boxes each day.”
Regional Expansion
Despite these challenges, BoxGreen has seen steady growth in the past few months and is looking to expand to other cities. However, it’s easier said then done for a startup like BoxGreen.
Andrew shared, “We’re not like software startups where you can just send it over through the Internet for someone to use. We have to be there to figure out the logistics, the taste profile of the market and execute it over there. Each city has their own unique quirks that we eventually have to overcome.
BoxGreen has already started this expansion with a soft launch in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia. They’re also looking at other cities that have a high density of middle class professionals like Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Speaking of the JFDI Accelerate Program, our 2015B Applications are now open. Our mentors, founders and investors form the perfect ecosystem for your startup to succeed in Asia. More than 60% of our Accelerate startups receive seed funding.
David Ongchoco is a content marketing intern for JFDI Asia. He currently studies at the University of Pennsylvania and runs an international nonprofit called YouthHack, which has a goal of helping students learn more about startups, technology and entrepreneurship. He also contributes for top publications like the Huffington Post, Technical.ly Philly and the Philippine Daily Inquirer.