Jul 29, 2019 · 1h 4m · how-i-built-this
Live Episode! Angie's BOOMCHICKAPOP: Angie & Dan Bastian
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this live episode of 'How I Built This,' host Guy Raz interviews Angie and Dan Bastian, detailing how a $10,000 driveway side hustle to fund their children's college tuition evolved through extreme grit, financial gambles, and vibrant rebranding into the $250 million snack brand Angie's BOOMCHICKAPOP.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Guy holds 38.1% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Guy as informed peer 3.0 Guest teaching 2.5 Guest disagreement 1.1 Guy pushing back 1.1
speaking balance: gold is Guy, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 52:10 Angie resisting conventional diet positioning
Angie firmly describes fighting internal staff and retail buyers who thought the name Boomchickapop was absurd, refusing to market products under reductive 'skinny' or 'diet' labels.
Hardest push from Guy ▶ 35:10 Guy highlighting the seven-year debt trapGuy directly challenges the founders on the irony of their initial goal, noting they were sinking deeper into crushing debt rather than building a college fund.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 32:25 Angie identifying the void of women snack foundersAngie explains how surveying grocery store shelves revealed exclusively male brand names, educating the host on why they deliberately created a brand centered around female empowerment.
Guy holds their own ▶ 16:45 Guy deconstructing the late-night online scam adGuy playfully breaks down the archetypal internet scam Dan fell for, noting how improbable it was that a late-night kettle corn kit ad yielded an empire.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Guy as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Guy pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Announcements for Live Shows and Summit | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Introductory housekeeping, teaser clip, and host monologue outlining the founders' journey. No live interactive dialogue occurs in this segment. | |
| Angie and Dan's Backgrounds and Early Paths | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Guy Raz warmly introduces the guests and explores their upbringings in Mennonite Indiana and Mankato. Angie and Dan share early life stories with self-deprecating humor in a highly cordial atmosphere. | |
| Meeting in Gallup to Marriage and Florida | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | The couple describes meeting in Gallup, New Mexico after both suffered broken jaws, followed by marriage and an initial move to Florida. Guy keeps the storytelling moving forward playfully. | |
| Finding Kettle Corn Online and Initial Setup | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | Guy playfully challenges Dan on falling for what sounded like an online get-rich-quick scheme. Dan and Angie joke about the lack of instructions and burning the initial batches in their garage. | |
| Rainbow Foods Debut and Early Weekend Hustle | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Angie and Dan detail their very first retail parking lot pop on Thanksgiving eve and how family and clinic patients reacted to their side hustle. The tone remains humorous and collaborative. | |
| Vikings Partnership and Metrodome Tailgate Popping | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Angie and Dan describe leveraging the Minnesota Vikings training camp and discovering they had to pay thousands for 'preferred' sponsor status. The audience and host laugh along with their early naivety. | |
| Pitching Lunds & Byerlys and Naming Angie's | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Dan recounts the blunt feedback from Lunds & Byerlys telling them to professionalize their packaging. Angie explains deciding to name the brand 'Angie's' after noticing the absence of female snack brands. | |
| Growing Retail Presence and Financial Pressures | 4 | 3 | 2 | 2 | Guy presses on the paradox of starting a business for college funds while sinking deeper into high-interest debt and marital stress. Angie and Dan candidly acknowledge their constant fighting and lack of time ownership. | |
| Trader Joe's Order and Financial Gamble | 3 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Dan details cold-calling Trader Joe's and landing a massive 25-truck order while completely cash-strapped. The couple explains surviving the order bottleneck by accepting a pre-approved mail-in credit card check. | |
| Recession Strategy and Angie Joining Full-Time | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | The founders describe their countercyclical hiring and growth strategy during the 2008 recession and Angie stepping into full-time leadership to pitch retail buyers who wanted the founder face-to-face. | |
| Sherbrooke Investment and BOOMCHICKAPOP Rebrand | 4 | 4 | 2 | 1 | Angie shares the origin of BOOMCHICKAPOP, resisting traditional gendered 'diet' snack branding and overcoming internal and buyer pushback against the name. | |
| TPG Growth Buyout and Sale to ConAgra | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Guy highlights the massive quarter-billion buyout by ConAgra and the liquidity distributions to long-time employees. Angie playfully corrects Guy that the valuation was for both the popcorn and the powerhouse brand. | |
| Wealth, Marriage, and Luck vs. Hard Work | 4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Guy asks his signature question about the balance between hard work, skill, and sheer luck. Both Dan and Angie reflect thoughtfully on timing, persistence, and marital commitment. |
Statements from this episode (12)
Dan Bastian launched Angie's BOOMCHICKAPOP with a $10,000 credit card purchase
“We called them, and we bought it on a credit card like everyone else, and we bought it, we got a kettle, a tent, you know, if you go to a fair, one of those outdoor kettles, and all the equipment, a table, it probably wasn't worth eight or 10,000, but we, it w…”
Founders financed BOOMCHICKAPOP's early days by rolling zero-percent credit card balances
“Yeah, but we used another credit card to pay off that credit card. There was a lot of credit cards going around at that time.”
Minnesota Vikings charged Angie's BOOMCHICKAPOP $8,000 for early preferred sponsorship
“8000 dollars.”
Angie Bastian named brand after finding only male-named retail popcorn competitors
“We went to the grocery store and we looked online, and what we saw at the time was in the grocery store, it was Orville, it was Vicks, it was Cracker Jack, Poppycock, Dale and Thomas, Harry and David, and I just turned to Dan and I said, where are the popcorn …”
Angie Bastian: Entrepreneurs do not own their time; the business owns it
“We have the misunderstanding that when you have your own business, you, you're the, you know, you own your time. That the opposite is true. The business owns your time.”
Trader Joe's initial BOOMCHICKAPOP order was 25 trucks worth up to $500,000
“She put in an order for 25 trucks.
That was
What, four or 500,000 dollars worth. It was crazy.”
Dan Bastian funded a Trader Joe's order via $100,000 mail-in credit card
“And it said, ah, call for a 100,000 dollars, and I got on the phone one night and said, can we get this 100,000 dollars wired to us, and our credit was good, and so they wired us a 100,000 dollars.”
Angie's BOOMCHICKAPOP reached three to four million dollars in revenue by 2009
“Maybe three, four million.”
Angie Bastian: The best time to raise capital is when you don't need it
“Even though we don't need it now, it made complete sense to us, and now we were in a position where we didn't need it, and that's the time to go ask for it.”
BOOMCHICKAPOP became the brand's top-selling SKU within four months of launch
“It was that first non-GMO branded popcorn on the market, and it became our number one selling skew in four months.”
Angie Bastian: Hard work is essential, but fortune separates success from failure
“I've seen a lot of really good people work just as hard as us, or harder, and not experience the same good fortune that we've had, and so I think it does take, I mean, we made a conscious effort to create goodwill and positivity, and when you do that, I believ…”