Rally | Jing Gao on Growing the Chili Crisp Business

Fly by Jing's CEO and Founder on her soaring enterprise, new job postings, and more

Mar 07, 2024

RALLY with Gold House Ventures is excited to spotlight exceptional Asian Pacific founders and investors through a biweekly feed of stories, funding opportunities, portfolio news, career opportunities, and events. If you are an entrepreneur looking to meet with Gold House Ventures or an investor looking to get more involved with Gold House’s Venture Network, please reach out to investments@goldhouse.org.

Spotlight

In this issue of RALLY with Gold House Ventures, we are thrilled to spotlight Jing Gao, the CEO and Founder of Fly By Jing, bringing authentic Szechuan flavors to your kitchen. If you’re interested in trying her products, you can use Gold House exclusive code GOLDHOUSE15 for 15% off any order – the code works 1 time per person and expires on May 31st.

Q: What inspired you to start Fly By Jing? Was there a specific moment or personal experience that led to the idea?

A: Fly By Jing, in its current form as a spice and condiment company, was born out of a suitcase. Whenever I took to the road to host a dinner somewhere in the world, my bags were packed full of high-quality ingredients that I couldn’t get anywhere but China. Fly By Jing was founded in 2018 and was inspired by the amazing flavors of my hometown Chengdu and its famous fly restaurants - soulful hole-in-the-wall eateries so good that they attract diners like flies.

Q: Your visibility as the face of the brand is a unique strength for Fly By Jing. How do you balance being a business founder with maintaining a personal brand on social media?

A: Fly By Jing is part of my expression of reclaiming my name, my identity, and my mission of expanding culture through taste. I truly believe we can expand people’s tastebuds and minds by introducing them to these incredible flavors and I am very passionate about being this ambassador. Majority of my time is spent working on the business with my team. My personal brand on social media is just additional things that I am excited about that I think that my community will be interested in. You don’t get to see all the meetings or spreadsheets. ;)

Q: Can you share any particularly memorable moments when negotiating with buyers or other partners?

A: Developing relationships with our buyers has been such an amazing experience. Our first Whole Foods buyer actually got introduced to our products through their wife who was a Kickstarter supporter! I feel very strongly about the ability to make in-person connections with buyers and partners, and feel lucky that we have been able to do that more in the last year than we did in the first two years of developing our brick-and-mortar business during peak COVID.

Q: What advice do you have for founders of consumer brands? What pitfalls do you hope they can avoid?

A: Make sure that whatever you are pursuing is driven by your burning desire to bring it into the world. The road to entrepreneurship can be often excruciating and you’ll need a north light to keep you going. Remember that most of us aren’t born with passions. Passions form from interest, dedication, and practice. The more you give to your craft, the more it gives back to you.

Lightning Round

Favorite place in Los Angeles to get work done?

Outside my new grab-and-go spot on Larchmont: Suá

If you could build a remote company from anywhere in the world, where would it be?

I am building one right here from the United States! I have loved the synchronicity of all the connections in Los Angeles.

Favorite Fly By Jing collab and dream brand collab.

This is just as hard of a question as which Fly By Jing sauce is my favorite! Our partnership with Fishwife has been really successful, and I feel lucky to call Becca a good friend. We are launching our newest flavor collab with them March 6!
McDonalds, we need to talk about a REAL Sichuan Sauce for my McNuggets®.

Where can consumers find Fly By Jing products?

Whole Foods, Sprouts, Target, Albertsons Safeway, Ralph’s, Amazon and FlyByJing.com

Upcoming Gold House Network Opportunities

RestorAsian Scholarship Fund: Last year, Anise Health launched the RestorAsian Scholarship, dedicated to making mental health services more accessible. Based on the demand of applicants, Anise Health is working with Asian Mental Health Project, a 501(c)(3) non-profit to renew this scholarship. Help them raise $20,000 to launch the next cohort of RestorAsian Scholarship in May 2024 here.

Wins to Celebrate:

Looking for your next professional move or know someone phenomenal who is?

Folio: CTO / Founding Engineer
Finch: Engineering Manager
MìLà: Strategic Finance Senior Manager
Musely: Marketing Lead
Osmind: Engineering Manager, Design Lead
Stackshare: Senior Account Executive
Surfboard: Full Stack Software Engineer
Slope AI: Product Marketing Lead

What’s Popping?

📈 AfterHour Launches Stonks Madness: There’s a new game in town for young investors looking for a high-drama tournament all their own. It’s called Stonk Madness, a new experience where stock market enthusiasts can pick winners from a bracket of 64 rival tickers. Here’s how it works:

Head to StonkMadness.com to sign up.
Players can set their brackets through March 18, 2024.
Each day, two rival stocks will go head-to-head, and the stock with the largest percentage gain at market close will win the round.
The tournament progresses from March 19 through April 5, 2024 until one stock remains as the Stonk Madness champion.

🎵Music Releases & News: Mad Tsai’s new EP “teenage nightmare” is dropping next month, and ticket sales for his upcoming World Tour open later this week. Don’t forget to check out our official playlist in collaboration with Spotify, Gold Beats, for more of our favorite API artists.

🚀Check out our Co-Founder, Eric Feng’s, latest blog post on how AI is going to change how startups are built and what VCs will look for in entrepreneurs they support.

Ideas? Questions?

Let us know in the comments below!

Gold House Ventures