Sajani Amarasiri Transcript
Jenna Sadhu:
Hi, everyone. You're listening to Radio Cherry Bombe and I'm assistant producer, Jenna Sadhu, coming to you from San Francisco. Each week, we talk to the coolest culinary personalities around, the folks shaping and shaking up the food scene. Where's Kerry, our regular host, you ask? She's out with COVID. I know, I know, that stinks. She's doing better, but she still has a bit of laryngitis.
Fortunately, last month she recorded the interview you're going to hear today. It's with Sajani Amarasiri the founder of Kola Goodies, a wellness brand featuring powdered lattes and teas inspired by Sajani's Sri Lankan heritage. Sajani is also the winner of the Cherry Bombe Woman in Food Award, which was part of the Foxtrot Market Up and Comers Competition. Sajani's prize included a cash award and marketing and PR support. Plus her Kola Goodies are now sold at Foxtrot Markets and in their online store.
The goal of the Up and Comers program this year was to support more female makers, which we love and we're happy to get behind. You can learn more at foxtrotco.com/upandcomers, and maybe even pick up a little something from Sajani. I think Kerry could use some of those wellness drinks. Just a note, Kerry and Sajani spoke before the recent political upheaval in Sri Lanka. They do discuss the situation in the country, but not the most recent news. Now, let's check in with Sajani.
Kerry Diamond:
Sajani Amarasiri, welcome to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Sajani Amarasiri:
Thank you. It's so exciting to be here.
Kerry Diamond:
Congratulations on winning the Foxtrot Cherry Bombe Award.
Sajani Amarasiri:
I am so excited and it's such an honor. It means so much to me, especially from Cherry Bombe, which is such an amazing publication. You've always been about raising women's voices and food, and it's such an honor, so thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
We got to know each other a tiny little bit before the award was announced, not related to Foxtrot because you were working on some interesting projects and I had ordered your product and loved it, and we'll talk about that in a little bit. But I want to go right into you and being an entrepreneur. You've already launched two brands, Kola Goodies and Colombo Cooperative. Were you entrepreneurial as a child or did your entrepreneurial tendencies surface later?
Sajani Amarasiri:
I think it came from my parents. That's actually all I knew growing up. I didn't know what corporate actually looks like. So corporate life was a newer thing for me to learn because my parents are small business owners in Sri Lanka, and so all I saw were them working for themselves. My mom was a gemologist. My dad was a tour guide and he was also the person that majorly took care of us while we were growing up. So I was definitely not in a very conventional South Asian household. I launched Kola and Colombo Co-op but what everyone should know also, there were so many other little starts and side hustles that didn't make it that far, that you wouldn't even know about it.
Kerry Diamond:
I heard something. You sold clothes at one point. You did a lot of things.
Sajani Amarasiri:
Yeah. When I was working in Seattle, I would just fly to L.A., go to the Garment District and buy some stuff, and sell it out of my spare bedroom. So there was a lot of different things that I did. And even though I was so grateful to have a job, I always felt like I wanted to do something more and there was something more that I could do. And as a child, when you think about what you are going to do when you grow up, I remember two things. One of my earliest memories was actually selling achcharu, which is pickled fruit. Here, you would have bake sales. In Sri Lanka, to raise money for causes or charities, we would have like achcharu sales in school.
And I used to love them. The spicy mango, the tamarind. Oh, my god. I could just eat that for a meal. And I would even get five, 10 rupees from my parents for after school. There would be a cart. I would buy from them. So I thought that would be the ultimate dream, is to have this achcharu store where even all the Hollywood and Bollywood superstars that I was obsessed would come and have the achcharu. I remember thinking about that. So it's so funny that in such a roundabout way, I'm now in a food-related business because in the middle, I didn't think I would.
Kerry Diamond:
Now you moved to the U.S. from Sri Lanka to attend college. I heard you went to college in Pittsburgh. Tell us where you went and what you studied, and why you chose that course of study.
Sajani Amarasiri:
So I went to Duquesne University. I came to Pittsburgh when I was 18, almost turning 19, first time in America. It was such a culture shock because you are sitting in Rockefeller Center in New York. I was thinking I'm going to New York because that's what you think when you're watching TV back home.
And when I went to Duquesne University, I actually had first gone for international business, and then I had a really great advisor who said, "If you want to have an option to stay in this country, you should do something more niche." And I would try different classes and I saw the smallest class size was supply chain management. I was like, "Oh, that seems niche because the class size is so small." And I was like, "I'll do that." And now, look at us sitting post-COVID where everyone knows supply chain. Back in 2009, 2010, no one cared about supply chain.
Kerry Diamond:
Now you're like a rockstar because you know something about supply chain.
Sajani Amarasiri:
Exactly. Everyone was like, "Oh, such a weird major to do." Well, guess what? I now even have a business in it, basically.
Kerry Diamond:
Now, you went on to work for Microsoft, but I don't think that was your first job out of school. Was it?
Sajani Amarasiri:
Amazon was my first job out of school, but Microsoft was my first full-time job out of school. Amazon, I went on as a contractor and there I learned so much about vendor management, onboarding vendors, negotiations, because at the time that I joined Amazon, it was about 2012, 2013, and they were just wanting selection. That's what their main goal was. The goal was that if you were to search for anything in the world, you should be able to find it on Amazon. So it was a really interesting time to be there. But Microsoft was the best. They sponsored my visa to be able to stay here, and that's where I truly felt like I got my first job, the nurturing, the leadership growth, opportunities that I got.
Kerry Diamond:
Now, did you move from Pittsburgh to Seattle for the Amazon job?
Sajani Amarasiri:
No. It was a couple of things. By then, I was already engaged to my fiance, who's now my husband. So he was already in Seattle and sponsorships and visa was the next hurdle that I had to.
Kerry Diamond:
I know what that is because we sponsored someone on our team, but a lot of folks might not know what that means. Can you explain?
Sajani Amarasiri:
Yes. So if you are an immigrant, especially if you came here as a student on a student visa to go to university, after university, you need another visa to stay here and it's called an H1B visa and a work visa. After college, after you graduate, there's one year that you are able to work and find a sponsor that would sponsor your H1B work visa. But the thing is super hard. A lot of my friends went back because they weren't able to find a job that sponsors. Basically, you have to be in tech because STEM grads get sponsored much more easily in H1B.
So the year I applied, I remember I had a 30% chance of getting sponsored because they only give 60,000 spots in a year, and that year there was 180, 190,000 people who applied, which was crazy. So basically, all of these hurdles. And I remember feeling so defeated because I worked so hard in college and I graduated summa cum laude. I had a 3.97 GPA, and I thought it's a given that I would get a job. But every interview, they were like, "Oh, do you need a visa?" And I would say, "Yes." And they're like, "Oh, sorry. We don't sponsor visas." So it was a really, really tough time to go through that because you're constantly being said no, and it's rejection after rejection, and you start doubting yourself. So that was really tough. So when Microsoft finally did sponsor, and they were so generous, they waited one and a half years for the visa sponsorship to come through. All of that. It was amazing.
Kerry Diamond:
Wow. That put you at such a disadvantage.
Sajani Amarasiri:
Yes. And I told that to myself too so badly because I'm such an ambitious person. I'm like, "Oh, my God, I'm getting behind in my career," and all of that because I'm such a type A. I want to control everything, so that was not easy.
Kerry Diamond:
This is a good spot to bring up something I heard you talk about on another podcast, making your mind your friend. And I had never heard it put exactly that way. And I would imagine when you're facing something like what you were facing with the visas, that it's good to make your mind your friend. Can you explain what that concept means?
Sajani Amarasiri:
Yeah. So I heard this in a book called Think Like a Monk by Jay Shetty. I think it's a zen mantra. When things are getting difficult and your mind has evolved to be looking at all the dangers right around you. "Oh, my God, you're not getting that job. Oh, my God, you are sick," and looking at all the ways to protect you, really. And so it's on this hyperactive mode of trying to be overprotective, but hurting you because you are feeding this negative loop into your mind.
So one of the things that I try to say when it's going crazy and uncontrollable and monkey mind, as we say in a lot of meditation practices, I try to say, "No, my mind is my friend. And how can I make my mind my friend?" Like, "Hey, mind. Let's say focused on this. We'll get through this." And even for the visa one, I just remember one of the things that got me through at that time was I had just watched Steve Jobs' Stanford commencement speech that said the dots are not going to connect looking forward. The dots always connect looking backward. And sitting here talking to you, the dots did connect looking backward, and that's what I had to keep telling myself until I got the visa, that this is going to work and it will make sense when you get the visa, and why you got the visa for this specific job at this specific company has to make sense, and it does now, looking back.
Kerry Diamond:
What was your job at Microsoft?
Sajani Amarasiri:
I was a supply chain planner.
Kerry Diamond:
I feel like we need a little bell to go off every time you say supply chain.
Sajani Amarasiri:
Every time we say supply chain. So I was in supply chain in tech. So if you think about their hardware division and they had just started their hardware division in terms of Surface laptops. When I joined, we had just launched Surface Pro 3. Microsoft has had Xbox for a long, long time, but it's a completely different life cycle. If you think about hardware, it's a much longer life cycle. So I came in and I got the job, pretty much the worst job that you can ever have, and my manager left two weeks after. And I was this college hire. So my job was reverse supply chain planning, which means managing all of the returns of all these tech products.
Kerry Diamond:
Reverse supply chain. That hurts my brain.
Sajani Amarasiri:
Exactly. So I was like, "Okay, wait. What am I doing? Okay. And you are leaving? Got it." But this is the thing in those situations, like I said before, I was thinking that I'm so behind my career, that I really needed to prove myself. And it was good and bad because I put a lot of pressure on myself to be successful. And I'm like, "If this is the worst job, I'm going to be the best at it." You would think Microsoft is such a big place. There are so many people running this. A college hire was running entire reverse supply chain for laptops at Microsoft in 2014. That blew my mind that I was doing this global role for millions and millions of dollars. But you just figure it out. You sink or swim. It was great in a way that all of the management actually got to see my mistakes as well as how I corrected them and how I learned from it and moved forward. So that was, I think, the real highlight and that enabled me to actually market myself so much more even within work and be like, "Look, I've done this and this." And then six months later, our team grew by five, six people. I'm like, "I've been doing all y'alls job for six months."
Kerry Diamond:
So I'm going to stop you right there because we need to talk about this concept of marketing yourself, because you had three great pieces of advice for those who work in corporations. You said you have to be great at your job. That's a given. You have to be great at people, and you have to market yourself and your job. Explain what all that means.
Sajani Amarasiri:
Yes. You have to be really good at your job. That's number one. There's a lot of people who just try to do the networking and get a leg up, but if your work isn't there to prove and show for what you are talking about, it's going to fall short.
So the mistake that I made in the first six to eight months of my college higher job is I just really wanted to be the best at reverse supply chain. But I realized so many people didn't know what I was doing because, one, they are very busy doing their own job. They didn't even really care about returns, really. But I had to make them care about returns, and how it impacts their jobs and the customer experience at the end of the day. So the biggest thing I learned was I can work all these hours... I was working crazy, crazy hours, but no one knew that I was working that hard for it.The biggest thing I did was started doing one on ones. I would just be like, "Hey, I am this. I am doing this part." If it's sourcing, if it's a logistics partner or logistics team, if it's the contract manufacturing team, I would just have one-on-ones with managers, their managers. And actually, being a college hire, It was great because people just want to talk to you, really.
Kerry Diamond:
Right. They might not be so receptive if you are a little older and have more seniority.
Sajani Amarasiri:
Yeah. So here you are just going to learn and with the genuine care about, "Hey, how can I give you better forecast, let's say, so that I make your job easier? But also here are all the things that I'm doing. And here is a little bit of how I work and what I control so that we can work together and see what's happening." So I think just genuinely creating connections like that and then marketing yourself. I can't just go and be like, "Oh my God, I'm the best planner here. I'm the best supply chain person here.
When you're just going and talking about the difficulties you are having and just asking for advice, then just people get to know the way you think, the way you work, and just get to know who you are. And I think that is such a big thing, especially for women in corporates. We tend to do our work and we hope that others realize that we are doing amazing work. That doesn't work. This is why guys get way ahead of us than what we do. We need to do our work. Be amazing at it. But let's market it. Let's go and talk to manager and say, "Hey, here are all the things that I did." Let's go and talk to your cross-functional managers and leaders about, "Hey, here are all the things I'm doing, and these are my career aspirations. I actually want to get into these parts, and I would love to know more about your experience."
Kerry Diamond:
That's such great advice, Sajani, because if you're doing something, if you've got a great project or product, or whatever, you can't sit back and wait for people to discover you.
Sajani Amarasiri:
No. You have to be a salesperson, and I think a lot of founders or aspiring founders, what you probably don't know yet is you are founder and a salesperson.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. Let's jump to your side hustles that became way more than side hustles. Which came first, Kola or Colombo Cooperative?
Sajani Amarasiri:
Colombo Cooperative came first.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. So tell us what that was and why you launched it.
Sajani Amarasiri:
I still have a running list of ideas of all the different things that I want to do. And all the different ideas, I'm like, "Oh, that will be so much better if we did it this way." And I keep this list in a OneNote. And I had written somewhere... Actually, the idea for Kola came before Colombo Co-op, but the execution of Colombo Cooperative happened first.
And for me, I think if we back up everything, I came to a point when I was 27, 28, where I was doing this amazing job, and I still knew there was something more that I wanted to do. I really started thinking about purpose in life and why am I doing what I'm doing? And I loved my job and all of that, but for me, I wanted to know what is the unique thing that I have in this world that I can bring out whether where I am or to a new place. After I think about my journey, where I've come here as an immigrant and I've grown up in America. It's what I say. I was born and raised in Sri Lanka until I was 18, but I really became myself when I came to the states because you are independent. You're figuring things out. You're working here for the first time.
I just came to this realization whatever I do, I want to have this intersection of my immigrant self, of my Sri Lankaness, and whatever I've learned from America and fuse that together. For me, Colombo Cooperative was a way of taking something from here, from the states, back to Sri Lanka, and Kola became the thing that I would bring from Sri Lanka to here. Colombo Cooperative started because I was looking at how do people network in Sri Lanka because like we just talked about, networking is so important. It's so important to get to know different people from different areas in life.
In Sri Lanka, we didn't have this concept of networking. When you grow up, you go to the same school for 13 years. And if you are lucky enough to get into one of those schools or if you are privileged enough to be going into one of the really, really good schools, that's great for you because you will have a great network because it's... Even though I went to a public school, I did have the privilege of having a great network because I went to a great, great public school. My dad though, he started in a small village. My mom, her dad was a train station master. My dad's dad was a driver. They were very poor. They have nine to 10 kids in each family. And I was always so, so inspired by what their journey was like. How did he come to where he was, have a place in Colombo, was able to put us into really good schools, was able to start his own business?
And that dream and ambition, they're my role models. I realized we are going more and more into a place where networking is getting more and more closed, and networking is going to be so important to opening up businesses. And in Sri Lanka, it wasn't happening. Because it's so weird, I could DM you and be like, "Hey, let's grab coffee." That doesn't happen as a cultural norm when I was growing up in Sri Lanka. So I wanted to actually change that and I realized a lot of the opportunities I've got in America has come from me networking, going to networking spaces, people introducing me. And initially wanted to just do a networking event, and I don't know why I thought this would be a great idea because I was sitting in Seattle. I'm like, "Oh, let's do networking in Sri Lanka." And then I started digging into it and there were no coworking spaces that were doing any community events.
Kerry Diamond:
Did they even have WeWork over there, or anything like that?
Sajani Amarasiri:
No.
Kerry Diamond:
Nothing. Okay.
Sajani Amarasiri:
Nothing, and this was 2018. This is not so long ago. And what a lot of people need to know in Sri Lanka is that there was a war when I grew up there too. So all my life, what I knew as Sri Lanka was a country... I was in the city so I didn't experience the war in a direct way. The most direct way that we experienced was constant bomb threats. And I went to a public school that was a very targeted and high-security public school as well.
And I came to America two months after the war ended. Every time I went to Sri Lanka in summer breaks, I saw this completely different Sri Lanka than from what I grew up, where people were starting businesses. People were taking more risks. And I selfishly wanted to be a part of it. And then I also wanted to make sure that we have spaces where people from all walks of life, no matter what your race was, no matter what your gender, sexual orientation, we create a space like that, and we let ideas brew and people meet. So Colombo Cooperative was the first community-focused space in Sri Lanka, and it's the first female-founded and female-funded place in Sri Lanka. And I'm sure very few of those exist in Asia.
Kerry Diamond:
Did you have to resign for Microsoft or were you able to do this at the same time?
Sajani Amarasiri:
The great thing about amazing managers and great leadership is that it's not about the job that you're doing. It's about you and your career, and what do you want to do? So I was so lucky to have great leadership at Microsoft, where they knew about all the side hustles I was doing, and they were like, "I think this makes you better at your job. As far as it's not coming in between work and this, keep doing what you're doing." And it wasn't a conflicting industry.
So I actually started Colombo Co-op while I was working at Microsoft. And it was crazy because I would work the work hours and then come back at night when Sri Lanka was waking up and do that. And I would just go back and forth. There were times that I would go to Sri Lanka for three days after flying for 25, 30 hours. And it was one of the most stressful times I would say, but I really just really wanted to do this. So I launched Colombo Coop, July 2018, and my goal was when I am operationally breakeven, I'm going to leave corporate and I'm going to give this entrepreneurship thing, or whatever it is, a try for three years. And October, 2018, I left Microsoft because within few months we were operationally breaking even.
Kerry Diamond:
How did you fund Colombo Cooperative?
Sajani Amarasiri:
My salary.
Kerry Diamond:
You did? Okay.
Sajani Amarasiri:
Yes, my salary, my savings. And it's not something that I would tell everyone to do. I was able to do it because I worked in tech. You have to look at your numbers first and your finances first, and see what works. I was working in tech. My husband's working in tech. My husband is my number one supporter, so he's like, "Go do whatever makes you keep going." And we made it as a joint decision, where whatever we are doing, we are doing for both of us. So if that means that we are single-income and I have saved up, that's what we are doing.
And so, we sat down, we did the unsexy thing of all the spreadsheets, putting your numbers. And I saved up so much, I remember, leading up to... Because I knew I wanted to leave and I was saving up a ton. We started to Airbnb a bedroom in our house so that I would be able to be okay with my half of the mortgage being covered. And it did. And so there are so many ways that you can now start monetizing the assets you already have, and it doesn't have to be that you leave your full-time job to do it.
Kerry Diamond:
How many locations did you ultimately open?
Sajani Amarasiri:
We only had one.
Kerry Diamond:
You had one. Okay.
Sajani Amarasiri:
We had one space and it was fairly small. It was l2,750 square feet. The community was absolutely amazing. And June 2021, closed it. It was just getting so hard with COVID, specifically. And it was sad because 2019 was an amazing year for us. And 2020 we wanted to do all of these growth plans, and we had COVID happen.
Sajani Amarasiri:
We had to close it in 2021. We still kept it going for 18 months after COVID as well, but it was just getting super hard to do.
Kerry Diamond:
How did you handle that emotionally?
Sajani Amarasiri:
I haven't had a divorce, but a lot of my friends who've gone through a divorce would say this, is that when you finally announce it, you've already grieved it, and has known that it was coming for a bit. And I think about six months into the pandemic, where in Sri Lanka, the pandemic lockdowns were not like here where you could walk outside. No. It's a complete lockdown. So people couldn't go. That means they're not even walking into a coworking space. So I just knew it was coming, and I think one way it was a relief when I accepted that it's okay for me to close, even though this was my first baby. It was just emotionally so stressful. And I was trying to handle both Kola and this. And Kola was not getting the attention it deserved. Because we had even launched a very early stage MVP thing in 2020. It was just getting very, very hard to do both. And they're both bootstrapped businesses. Having two bootstrapped businesses with a skeleton budget, it's really hard because the biggest resources is my time at that point.
But what helped me most, was the community sending the messages of how this space impacted them. How women and men felt very welcome, how it connected so many people. Business partners were found. New business connections were found. So ultimately, we achieved the mission that we wanted to. And I wasn't feeling like we are closing the only space that existed because after we started, now there were a lot of different co-working spaces coming in. So when we started, we had to educate a lot of people about what co-working was in Sri Lanka. But because of that, now there was a catalyst effect and there's an entire industry now, so that's great. There were other spaces.
Kerry Diamond:
And it sounds like you planted so many seeds among the entrepreneurs there. So congratulations on that.
Sajani Amarasiri:
Thank you. And I think it helped me actually start Kola. So we know when one door closes, plenty open. And me going back to Sri Lanka now helped me realize that I went through that idea list. I'm like, "Oh, this kola kanda thing could maybe... Why don't I start doing this as well.?" And because that intersection of me taking something from here versus me bringing something from there to the states, it opened up more opportunities for me to work on Kola Goodies. It was a blessing in disguise because in the last year, how far Kola Goodies has come, would not have happened if Colombo Cooperative was still there.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell us what Kola Goodies is.
Sajani Amarasiri:
Kola Goodies is a superfood and multi-brand where we make delicious beverage mixes inspired by my South Asian heritage. We do all of that by giving back to the communities and cultures it originates from. And one of that ways is we work directly with farmers in Sri Lanka to source our ingredients.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell us what some of the products are, so we know what some of those key ingredients are.
Sajani Amarasiri:
So our products are our super green latte, which is inspired by a drink that I grew up having called kola kanda in Sri Lanka. We have a delicious turmeric latte. And all of those are vegan. They have coconut milk and oat milk mix, with all the herbs like moringa, Ceylon cinnamon, gotu kola, turmeric, ashwagandha in those products. And what you have tried also is Sri Lanka milk tea, which has become our number one now, which is so surprising to me, Kerry, because I launched this with super green in the forefront and we have done zero marketing in terms of PR and not much influencer marketing. And because we are bootstrap, we don't have much Instagram, Facebook, social budget, and Sri Lanka milk tea has become our number one, surpassing both the others.
Kerry Diamond:
It is such a good product.
Sajani Amarasiri:
It is delicious. Our other ones are energy immunity, and this one, we call it the Wellness For Your Soul drink because it is just one of those drinks as you sip it, it's hard to not relax. Hard to not be happy. It's a feel-good drink.
Kerry Diamond:
I also do find it energizing. I like it at about 3:00 or 4:00. You launched Kola for multiple reasons, but one of the reasons was a reaction to what was going on in the wellness community. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Sajani Amarasiri:
I can. So this actually goes back to when I first came in 2009. I remember seeing coconut oil having a moment. And coconut oil and coconut milk is the baseline for Sri Lankan cuisine. The funny thing is coconut oil is a thing that in Sri Lanka, it's not as cool as, even though the Western culture was making this, "So big and so good for you," which it is good for you. And it just made me think about in 2009, how unappreciative we were of our own ingredients that we grew up with, but at the same time how the Western culture was taking something and it's going everywhere, and treating it like there's some new thing that has existed even though it's a part of everyday life for millions and billions of people in South Asia.
So I remember thinking about that in 2009. I was like, "Oh really? Coconut oil is cool?" I ran from my mother when she was trying to put that in my hair because it wasn't cool because Western media for a long time, taught us that it wasn't cool that your hair smells. That you look oily. That your clothes smell of curry. And so you start to say, "Oh, those are not cool things, but let me take out the other cool things." But then they were like, "Oh no, we were kidding. Turmeric is great, and so is all these other herbs that you grew up with."
So I just remember seeing over the years, 2009, 2010, and then especially 2017, 2018, where turmeric was having a huge boom, and turmeric lattes were having a boom. And that just opened my eyes to the fact that the market might be ready now for a lot of other ingredients and rituals that also originate from South Asia. So, that was one of the factors. And then I looked at the brands that were selling turmeric lattes at the time, and none of them were South Asian owned, and none of them were supporting the communities that it comes from. They probably don't even know how old the turmeric was that was going into their turmeric latte. So for me, that was unacceptable that we weren't telling the story. You don't have to be South Asian, but tell the story of this ingredient, of this ritual that has been a part of our lives for 2,000, 3,000 years.
So, that was unacceptable to me, and when I go back to, "Hey, what can I bring from my culture, supporting my people and in a way that we can all enjoy it here," then that's how Kola Goodies came about, because I have clearly a very unique insight into a culture where all of these rituals originate from. I grew up there, but then I also understand how we work and how we live in America and what we like here.
It was such a great opportunity for me to be able to bring both of those two things together, to be able to say, "Hey, this is how I had kola kanda, and moringa, and gotu kola when I was growing up in Sri Lanka, but here's how we need to modernize it so that people today, and even myself today, has the time to make it and enjoy it." And while I can just go back home and make connections with farmers and find a way that we can actually tell their stories, bring them on the journey, and make sure that we are elevating the culture and the community while creating a badass brand. All of those came together to bring Kola Goodies to play.
Kerry Diamond:
Now it's one thing to open a location like you did with Colombo Cooperative, even though that was clearly very hard because you're in different time zones, different places. But doing product is a completely different thing, and product from the ground up. But how did you educate yourself on actually launching products?
Sajani Amarasiri:
You have this naive sense of like, "Oh, I can do it." I think all entrepreneurs are crazy. Who thinks that, "Hey, I saw that. Let me create that." It took a lot of steps. It's so embarrassing to say this right now, but I had no idea how to even make a drink into a powder. I literally thought that you should spray dry it and put it in a powder.
And then one of my friends, I think he's in the tea industry in Sri Lanka, and he was like, "No, Sajani, you don't need to do that. There are powders now that you can mix." So it took a lot of different trial and errors in order to get the product ready and even to understand, "Oh, all of these ingredients," because I never used coconut powder. So in Sri Lanka, when I was growing up, my mom would scrape the coconut, blend it, make the coconut milk. And that's the coconut milk that went into our curries, that went into our super green latte / kola kanda, that went into everything. So I didn't have this concept, "Oh, I can get the powder of this, of this one, the turmeric and mix it together."
Even that was a hurdle. So, if anyone is out there thinking that you can't make a product, if I could figure it out, you can totally figure it out. So it went from even that ignorance stage, because you take all of these things for granted. I took gotu kola for granted. Moringa, turmeric. I took my mom's wisdom for granted, honestly until people here started telling, "Oh yeah, gotu kola is great for you," and I was like, "My mom said that so maybe it is true now."
You take all of these things for granted and it's such a personal journey, I think as well as a founder, when you are going on like creating a product because you learn so much about yourself and your values and saying, "Oh no, here is what is an absolute must-have for this product. Yes, I absolutely have to source it from farmers here. I absolutely have to. I really want to get the turmeric from Sri Lanka." Turmeric in Sri Lanka is expensive right now, and especially the times that we were buying this. I definitely could have bought this from India, but I wanted to bring something that is authentic to myself, and even though that it was more expensive, I just had to do it because it would be true to the product.
And that's the same thing with Sri Lankan milk tea. So it took months of trying different things. We knew what it had to taste like. We knew that we wanted to buy from smallholder farmers and not from a big plantation factory, because there's an entire different colonization, different slavery story that we can totally get into with Sri Lanka and Ceylon tea. Because of these reasons, we knew that we wanted to work with small factories and farmers that own their own tea. Honestly, I have to tell you the Sri Lanka milk tea is a genius idea of my husband who loves my mom's milk tea, and he's the one with more patience between the two of us. I am like, "Hey, let's go. Let's do this," but I don't have the time or the patients for all the trials that we need to do. He's really good at setting up the trials. "Okay. Here's we are going to adjust the tea levels, sugar levels, milk levels, and we are going to do this."
So basically, it was a lot of trial and error, a lot of traveling around Sri Lanka to find the farmers that we wanted. Countless hours on the phone and on video with our designers who were both Sri Lankan, an illustrator, who was both Sri Lankan as well, on how do we blend the culture, but also bring the modern sense out in our packaging and communications and design. And countless hours of trialing of different products, shelf life testing, all of these things, because we did our own shelf life testing.
Even right now for our next product, I have a shelf life that is out there just testing it. So it was a lot of different things that you learn and you have to be able to learn on the go. And I think the only thing you need to be doing when you're bringing a product is being okay with being so wrong, but learning from it.
Kerry Diamond:
What is your ultimate goal for Kola?
Sajani Amarasiri:
The ultimate goal for Kola is always going to be, how can we elevate the communities and cultures, ingredients and rituals originate from? We tell those stories and we reclaim our culture ourselves and make really enjoyable products for everyone, no matter who you are, that it's so enjoyable, and it's so easy for you to make and incorporate into your day-to-day life. And right now, that form takes a Sri Lanka milk tea, and a super green latte, and a turmeric latte. But the ultimate goal is we can be in so many different product categories. We can bring this in different food categories.
Sajani Amarasiri:
Would I love to do ready-to-drink milk tea? I absolutely would love to do that. But in everything that we touch, I want us to elevate the culture, the community, and the people who grow these ingredients.
Kerry Diamond:
It doesn't sound like you are looking to sell Kola Goodies anytime soon.
Sajani Amarasiri:
No. I think we have so much to do. We are just starting. We launched properly in August 2021. We have so much to do, Kerry. And we are just starting a retail channel. We haven't scratched the surface of our direct consumer yet, but we just got co-packers out. We are babies, so let's grow this and let's get out there so that people can see themselves in every product that we do.
Kerry Diamond:
Are you still bootstrapped?
Sajani Amarasiri:
Yes. We are still good strapped. It is definitely a journey because you are definitely making a lot of trade-offs when you are bootstrapped. But the best wine comes when the soil is a little strained or dry. The best tea comes when the soil is in difficult conditions. So the best companies may come out of the tougher times that's coming ahead.
Kerry Diamond:
So, Sajani you and I first got to know each other when you started this fundraiser for Sri Lanka. I would love for you to tell folks about the fundraiser, why you were doing it, and who are some of the folks you brought together to help you with it.
Sajani Amarasiri:
To everyone who doesn't know what's happening in Sri Lanka right now, Sri Lanka is currently in a complete economic collapse, which is so not the country that I grew up in. It was not the country that I was visiting even a year ago. It has come about because of number one, corruption, number two also, COVID because of tourism and lack of tourism, and lack of foreign currency coming into the country. But right now, Sri Lanka doesn't have fuel. It's come to a complete standstill. Schools are closed because people don't have fuel to get to places. There is no LP gas, which is how people cook.
So my parents are right now doing this wood hearth thing at home so that they can cook. There's food shortages. It's really sad, and I've never seen our country in a place like this, even through a war. It makes me so angry at the leaders who let it and even the catalyst this to happen this way. Being the only Sri Lankan company, honestly, doing any food product here, I just did this TikTok back in March because no one was talking about this. And in Sri Lanka, I would talk to my parents and they're like, "Oh, people are dying waiting in line." And I'm like, "Why is no one talking about this?"
So I just did that TikTok, and then people were like, "How can we help?" And you were also like, "How can we help?" So we did this fundraiser because even now, not a lot of known NGOs are doing any relief efforts for Sri Lanka. So we partnered with community partners who are not registered charity, but they have been doing this for years, giving food. And now we have a registered charity that we are partnering with as well. And this fundraiser, you can even now go to our website and get the resources, directly donate to Foundation of Goodness, or any of our other community partners as well. But we are also selling this $5 sticker that 100% of all of that sales goes into getting food, specifically grocery packs. So, so far we've donated 92,000 meals in the last few months of fundraising through just a simple act of $5 a sticker.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, I'm so sorry for what's going on and what your family's going through. And it just has to be so impossible to break through the news between Ukraine, and the Supreme Court, and the January 6th hearings.
Kerry Diamond:
Poor Sri Lanka really has not gotten the attention that it should be getting.
Sajani Amarasiri:
No, it hasn't, and I feel like it's not a new thing though, because I don't think the war made headlines here even when people were dying over there. And I think it's a Western media thing, honestly, where unfortunately, things happening in those countries, it's not important, or people expect it to always be like that, whereas it's not like that.
So it's sad to see that they're not getting the attention it deserves so that people can mobilize more, because Sri Lanka is such a small country. We don't have a huge diaspora. It's a 22 million population. I don't even know how many Sri Lankans are here in America. It's very little, so there's only so much noise that we can make as well. So it's sad in that way because we don't have a significant diaspora that can also spread the word or raise awareness.
Kerry Diamond:
That is part of the reason I'm filled with so much admiration for young women like you and others who are in this very interesting sorority, where you are reclaiming your heritage through food. And it's you, it's Sana from Diaspora, it's the sisters at Omsom, Fly By Jing, brands like that. And I'm very heartened by what you've all achieved and the conversations you've all started and hopefully, it can lead to even greater change.
Kerry Diamond:
How do you take care of yourself mentally and physically? It's not something we've talked enough about as women period, but as women entrepreneurs in the work world.
Sajani Amarasiri:
I found myself really burning out, especially when I was having two businesses. And it was so important for me to take a step back and understand why am I doing all of this? And if I don't take care of myself, we can't achieve the mission. We can't make delicious products, and we can't make everyone's days better if you are not feeling better.
So I've actually started working out at least 30 minutes every day. And it puts me in such a great mood. Before I came here, I did a 20 minute yoga situation and it was great. And I think the other thing that I do a lot, and I spend a lot of time with, is meaningfully connecting with my family because I think a lot of people take it for granted that you live close by to your family. But my family's scattered all around the world. My parents are in Sri Lanka. My brother is in Jersey. My sisters in Dubai. We're all over the place. So taking the time. I call my nephew in New Jersey early today. I call my parents daily. And I think that helps me stay so connected to them as well. It's an act of self care too. And I try to meditate.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. All good advice. Any fun summer plans?
Sajani Amarasiri:
Yes. So we had this trip planned in 2020 September, and obviously, we know what happened in COVID. And it was a trip to Tuscany because my parents have never been to Europe, so the kids are taking the parents to Rome and Tuscany, and all of us are finally meeting after a very long time. I don't think the entire family has been together in years, so we are super excited for that family time.
Kerry Diamond:
That's very special. Well, Sajani, thank you so much for your time. This has been so great talking to you. And again, congratulations on winning the Foxtrot Cherry Bombe award. It was an honor being able to give you that award. And like I said, I'm very excited just to get to know you better, and for everybody in the Bombesquad to get to know you better because you are obviously a very special human being.
Sajani Amarasiri:
Oh thank you, Kerry. Thank you so much for having me, and I'm so excited for all the things that we are going to do.
Kerry Diamond:
Me too. Me too.
Sajani Amarasiri:
Yay.
Kerry Diamond:
I can't wait to see what's next for Kola also. Congratulations on building a beautiful brand.
Sajani Amarasiri:
Thank you.
Jenna Sadhu:
That's it for today's show. Thank you so much to Sajani Amarasiri for stopping by and congrats on winning the Foxtrot Up & Comers Cherry Bombe award. If you'd like to try Kola Goodies, visit Foxtrotco.com/upandcomers to explore. And Kerry, I hope you're feeling better. If you enjoyed today's show, check out our past interviews with other entrepreneurs like Christy Goldsby of Honey Mama's, Dee Charlemagne of AVEC Beverages, and Samantha Sheehan of Mommenpop, wherever you get your podcasts. You can sign up for our newsletter at cherrybombe.com, so you don't miss a single episode. Radio Cherry Bombe is a production of Cherry Bombe Magazine. Our theme song is by the band, Tralala. Thank you to Joseph Hazan, studio engineer for Newsstand Studio at Rockefeller Center. And thanks to you for listening. You're the bombe.