logo
episode-header-image
Nov 2024
45m 51s

🌶️ Sriracha: From Smuggled Gold to Hot ...

Wondery
About this episode

Chances are you’ve got a bottle of Sriracha chilling in your fridge right now, but have no idea who invented it — or the spicy story of how he made it happen. Entrepreneur David Tran fled Vietnam in the late 70s, smuggling gold bars into the US to start his venture - selling hot sauce out of a van. Little did he know his thick, spicy red jalapeño concoction would make him the world’s first hot sauce billionaire…without ever spending a single dollar on advertising (FYI: Kraft dropped $750M on marketing alone in 2023). For over 40 years, David’s stayed laser-focused on making “a rich man’s sauce at a poor man’s price.” But when massive pepper shortages threatened the entire business, he faced a choice more painful than Tabasco on a paper cut. Find out how David puts “Co’s before Pro’s” (customers before profits)...and why Sriracha is the best idea yet.


Follow The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting www.wondery.com/links/the-best-idea-yet/ now. 

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Up next
Aug 19
🏰 Disneyland: The Fantasy that Almost Flopped | 45
Who wouldn’t want to visit the happiest place on Earth? Well — at the start of the 1950s, it seemed like no one did, at least not when Walt Disney pitched the idea. Sure, Walt had revolutionized animation with Steamboat Willie. And he'd had critical successes with classics like S ... Show More
42m 3s
Aug 12
🍜 Instant Ramen: The Incredible, True Story of “Mr. Noodle” | 44
It’s postwar Japan, and entrepreneur Momofuku Ando has lost everything—his business, his home, and his savings. In fact, the whole country has been ravaged by air raids, and people are hungry. But when he stops at a black-market noodle stall and watches desperate people line up f ... Show More
41m 41s
Aug 5
🥃 Hennessy: From King George to Kendrick | 43
A wounded Irish soldier crawls from a blood-soaked battlefield in the French countryside. He survives, but his fighting days are over. So he settles in the Cognac region, and in 1765, starts a modest brandy business. Richard Hennessy could never dream that 260 years later, his na ... Show More
41m 5s
Recommended Episodes
Nov 2024
The Best Idea Yet 🌶️Sriracha: From Refugee to Billionaire
Follow our The Best Idea Yet, our 2nd podcast series, to get episodes like this every week:https://wondery.com/links/the-best-idea-yet/ Chances are you’ve got a bottle of Sriracha chilling in your fridge right now, but have no idea who invented it — and the spicy story of how he ... Show More
47m 56s
Jun 17
¿La Salsa Cholula no Viene de Cholula? - Cholula Hot Sauce Doesn't Come from Cholula?
We explore why Cholula sauce, named after our hometown, isn’t actually made here—and why most locals don’t even use it. From its humble beginnings in a Mexican kitchen to its massive $800 million acquisition by McCormick, this episode uncovers the cultural, historical, and econom ... Show More
25 m
May 2024
How the Jalapeño Lost Its Heat
The jalapeño is the workhorse of hot peppers. They’re sold fresh, canned, pickled, in hot sauces, salsas, smoked into chipotles, and they outsell all other hot peppers in the United States. These everyday chilies are a scientific and sociological marvel, and tell a complicated st ... Show More
32m 38s
Apr 2025
Trump’s tariffs: The price of spice
For thousands of years people have traded spices across continents, sharing recipes and wealth. But what could happen to the modern spice industry if costly barriers to free trade are imposed? As US President Donald Trump reaches 100 days in office, it is arguably his “reciprocal ... Show More
17m 27s
Jan 2025
Resy and Eater: Ben Leventhal
When Ben Leventhal first started blogging about New York City’s restaurant scene in the early 2000s, he was doing it as a hobby. But as the website Eater gained weight and spread to other cities, it became a snarkily influential voice in the dining world. Recognizing that many re ... Show More
55m 57s
May 6
🎬 “Quentin Tariff-tino” — Hollywood’s digital trade war. Warren Buffett’s secret investing sauce. Skechers’ $9B retirement.
Hollywood just entered the Trade War… starring the 1st ever digital tariff (100% on Wicked 2).Warren Buffett is retiring, so we found his secret $$$ sauce… It’s culture, not calculations.Skechers is the 3rd biggest shoe biz on earth… and just sold for $9B thanks to your nana.Plus ... Show More
22m 51s
Aug 11
Crumbl: Jason McGowan
Crumbl may be a cookie business – but Jason McGowan turned it into a fast-growing restaurant chain by building it like a tech startup. He and co-founder Sawyer Hemsley meticulously A/B tested the recipe, launched a delivery app early on, and went viral with weekly drops of wild n ... Show More
1h 4m
Jul 7
Rick Steves' Europe: Rick Steves (2021)
Rick Steves spent the summer after high school backpacking through Europe on two dollars a day—sleeping on the floor, sneaking into museums, and subsisting on a diet of bread and jam. When he came home, he found people were hungry for tips on how to visit Europe on the cheap, so ... Show More
1h 17m
Jul 2024
The $500,000,000 meat stick company
People have been loving my latest emails where I share brutally honest advice on a variety of topics. Sign up at noahkagan.com and join 350k other people who get juicy insights every week.     In this episode, I chat with Pete Maldonado, co-founder of Chomps, about how they built ... Show More
53m 8s