Jason Pang - Co-founder & COO of Whiff.com

Welcome to the Tacos and Tech podcast where we discover cutting edge technology and the builders making it happen. I'm your host, Neal Bloom, San Diego's tech ambassador, and together we're going to uncover what technology San Diegans are creating with our own blend of local lifestyle. This podcast is proudly brought to you by our friends at Cox Business. Cox Business provides broadband Internet and cloud services to the modern tech company and is a longtime supporter of the startup community. Alongside Techcoast Angels and San Diego Venture Group, Cox Business will be co hosting the annual John G. Watson Quick Pitch Competition in October, where entrepreneurs will be vying for a $75,000 prize and the potential for additional investment. Go to quickpitchsd.com for more details. Thanks for joining us for another podcast episode. I'm your host, Neil Bloom and I am joined by Jason Peng, co founder of wyff. Thanks for being here.

Hey, thanks. Thanks for having me.

So I'm really excited to hear what you're working on now. If you would love to tell us a little bit about wyff, and then I want to hear how you got into technology, what brought you to San Diego, and then we'll come back around and hear what WIF is.

Okay. Yeah.

So this is going to be crazy for those people that do know me. So WIF is an e commerce company, but the premise is it's for perfumes. It's to help people find their favorite or perfect scent. So we've blended technology and we like to call it scent sequencing. So we're taking all the tech goodies that we know of, artificial intelligence, data matching, data mining, all that, and then we take feedback from people and we help them find unique fragrances that they would never even have tried. So, yeah, so to go from prior stock fintech trading to perfumes, it's the craziest ride. But hey, such is the life in the startup world, huh?

Yeah, I love it.

Always reinventing yourself, that's for sure. Well, why don't you tell us how you started in the tech world? What got you into tech?

Yeah, so I was in tech at Accenture doing technology consulting, and that was in Houston. And during that time I'd done network architecture, data center, high availability, all those things for major corporations. Then we were working one day and then someone said, hey, there's a startup idea and it's in San Diego. And DivX, it was DivX. So we were just working on it nights, weekends. And then what happened?

You moved to San Diego for that.

Or you were still working on it. I had a career, I had family. I mean, everything was going gangbusters in Houston. I thought I was gonna, like, make partner and retire there. And I was on. The partners were, you know, at least they said they had me on fast track because I made it very well known that, look, I want to succeed and I want to stay here. So everything was going great. And then ran into some friends there. It was one of the guys named Tay. He was one of the co founders of DivX, and Jordan Greenhalgh, CEO. So I met them, and Tay and I worked together. Accenture. And then one day, it actually happened. DivX got funded, so we had to quit our jobs. And I was like, wow, I worked my butt to get this job. Not gonna quit. So I moved to San Diego.

Why did it go from Houston to San Diego in the first place?

Jordan was here and he had started and he got the funding here. Got it. So we said, okay, we'll move here. Then the other guys moved. Another guy moved from New York. Jerome was the creator of DivX. He was French, so he came from France. And. Yeah, so that's what brought me out here to San Diego. That was the first startup, and there was six of us, and I was the first employee. And it was absolutely a crazy roller coaster. It was ups and downs. I probably forgot more than I remember just because he tried to block those things out of your mind.

Trauma.

Trauma. Thank God we were young. We were all in our 20s. I think the first round was $5 million.

Okay. Yeah.

And we ran out of money, really. See, layoffs. And we had to lay off our friends. But it was all good. We were. I mean, not good in the sense that it was in a positive. I mean, like, we tried to do it as friendly as possible. Hey, we're really sorry. But we ended up ipoing that company. So the company started in 2000. We IPO'd in 2006. I lasted a year after that. 2007, I said, okay, I think I'm done. Seven years. That was the longest stint. It's a long stint.

Yeah.

And then, yeah, that's what brought me to San Diego. First taste of startup.

And where was the company based in San Diego.

We were in. We started in General Atomics, which is right over there in UTC.

Yep.

And it was the same location that MP3.com started.

Oh, that's funny.

It's the same exact history.

Yeah. Yeah.

So that was pretty cool. And then we stayed in utc, so we moved into another place right down the street from the mall, UTC mall. And I think they're still there to this day.

Oh really?

Yeah.

That's cool.

I think so, yeah.

So the company DivX, have you stayed in touch? Is anyone still there from back in the early days?

Yeah, there's still people there, but we were publicly traded. We got to $1.1 billion market cap back in 2000. So that was a big deal. And then we were all happy. And then what happened was I think another firm, it was bought and sold a couple times over.

Got it.

Interesting.

So what'd you go on and do right after that? Or maybe you did nothing for a bit?

I tried to do nothing. It was the most difficult thing I've ever done to try not to do anything. Right. I literally had the shakes.

Yeah.

I woke up like, what the hell am I doing today? So then we did a mobile texting, like a coupon. So literally it was a little bit of all the SMS back and forth, like almost like the bots you have today and then discount coupons, almost like Groupon. So the whole idea was that you'd sign up and we would send you, hey, what do you feel like lunch today, Neil? And we timed it during the day. We would send it to you at 11am or 10:30 and it would say one Mexican, two Italian and then you would reply with one and get Mexican. Here's the three Mexican restaurants in your area.

Yeah.

So you would sign up and tell us your zip code and then we try to geolocate you or send you geo located deals based on that. That was pretty neat. We did that for exactly a year. Another company in San Diego liked it. They acquired us and they closed a quarter million dollar deal right away with another big distributor. And we thought, wow, they're going places. And then they ended up just crater, like oh so disappointing. So, and then I had another company, did another one called Prima Cinema, which is the movie company. And so that whole idea was that was a true swing for the fences. That was the whole idea there was get Hollywood films when they come out of theater and digitally encode them, encrypt them, secure them and deliver them to people's homes so you can watch it the same weekend. That's cool, right? That comes out in the theater. So raised a lot of money. Fast forward the, the highlights were this. We had almost 50% of Hollywood's output. Universal invested, Best Buy capital invested, IMAX invested. We had a lot of private investors. I mean it was, it was great. We had Universal, Paramount, Relativity, Weinstein, several Of the other smaller labels signed up. We had Fox and Disney on deck. And Sony, they were on deck. They weren't signed yet, but they were seriously, I think we were starting to move in that direction. And the product was shipping. We had the who's who as a client using Prima. It was unbelievable. And then we got to the point where next round of funding and just we hit a roadblock and there was some disagreement at the board level. And then everyone thought, this company's gonna get to a multi billion dollar valuation. We have film rights that no other company in the world has. And it just started falling apart. So they rejected an offer for investment. And then after try to fight for money and trying to keep the company afloat, after about six or nine months, I just finally said, I'm done. So I formally just left on good terms. I said, I'm done, gentlemen. You can run it the way you see it. And then went on to start up sparkfin. Spark Finance.

Yeah.

So whatever happened to Prima? Did it?

I think it ran for a while and I don't know, I've just kept quiet. I'm just quietly hoping that they succeed, but I don't think so.

Yeah. Okay.

Interesting.

Yeah.

So then, then Howard Lindsin was. He's the general partner over at Social Leverage. He was an angel investor in Prima and he was actually giving me guidance. And he said, you know, if the board's not listening to you, then you shouldn't be there. And I was like, no, I can't. I got to fight and try.

Right.

And Howard was fantastic though, because he gave me some really good advice. And then I worked with him and we started up Sparkfin. He had this great. He's a fintech expert and he had some fantastic ideas. We started up Spark Finance and the whole idea there was around lists, finding trading ideas for stocks, the top healthcare companies, the top biotech companies, so you can look at them in lists. And then the ultimate goal was that you could buy and sell in lists. And what I mean by that is pick your top five favorite stocks. Apple, Tesla, Amazon. Right now if you buy one share of each is like $3,000. It's too expensive. So the whole thing that we were going to do is do fractional trading. So here's 500 bucks, here's five stocks. Put a hundred dollars in each. Done. It's. And it's essentially this is. We were designing this back when crypto was still.

Yeah.

And now that's how you buy crypto.

Right.

You don't buy one Bitcoin or two coins. Right. You buy in fractions, you just say how much. So yeah, I still think there's an opportunity. But stocktwits, we were designing that, we got it to work on the back end. We had everything lined up and stocktwits saw what we're building. They loved it, liked the idea and they acquired us after that.

Yeah.

So then what a storied past.

So many things you've worked on. But back on the SparkFit thing, the content you guys were putting out was incredible. Was that Brian who was doing a lot of that?

Yeah, Brian was.

Yeah.

That Sunday picks I think you'd do for the week. I still own stocks from that I picked. Bought from your content.

Yeah. Yeah.

I think it was top 10 stocks to watch.

Yep.

And then we started ranking. We were doing all kinds of SEO.

Yep.

And then we started ranking. I think we got into the top 10 or top five for stocks to watch or we didn't either number one or number two.

Wow.

Yeah, that's awesome.

Yeah.

Just by mean, we didn't know what phrase to use because there's so many phrases and words were used for stocks.

Yeah.

In finance. But I guess with enough content, with enough optimization. Yeah, we got up there. So. And we started driving a lot of traffic. That's really cool.

Yeah.

And ultimately sold it.

Yeah, yeah, sold it. And then the business model was. Is something that Stockton loved because they've got the audience. We had the model but we didn't have an audience yet. We were still too small.

Got it.

That makes sense.

Right? Yeah.

So we spent a lot of time building the tech. We just got it out and started promoting and then we wanted to launch the whole fractional trading.

Yeah.

So yeah, I mean that would have been a really huge effort to all of a sudden trade on your platform.

Right. That's like a big step up. That's a huge step. But we had the. What the key there was that we negotiated the right partnerships so we had some back end help as well. So yeah, all that was test it out and was actually working.

Oh, cool.

The deal finished.

Yeah. Yeah.

So giving us a little insight into future StockTwits features.

Maybe.

I don't know, I don't know. The roadmap. That'd be great.

Yeah, yeah.

So you went from Accenture doing, you know, consulting, advising, divx encoding, mobile discounts, mobile coupons, texting coupons, cinema, bringing videos to yourself, digital media, fintech. And now of course the natural step is fragrance.

Now why would you not do perfumes?

So how did you find your way to wif?

So what happened was I met Paul Tran who initially came up with the concept for WiF. So we met years ago and we kept in touch. And just like a lot of entrepreneurs and founders, we all keep in touch with each other. And so it was just literally like the day that we did the acquisition and then I was done that. I think it was the first day that I literally had time off. I already had lunch planned with Paul. Just by coincidence. Right. And so then Paul said, I've got a new idea. And he asked me what I'm doing. I said, nothing right now. He's like, oh my God. So. Because we've always talked about retelling.

Yeah, exactly.

He's always talking about doing something together, you know, maybe one day. But so then he told me about the idea for wif. And I said, and that came because he's had other very successful companies. And he said, you know, I created my own scent for one of these companies and it was the most interesting and rewarding experience. Even as a guy said, I really enjoyed it. So I think there's a market for this, for you to create your own scent, but we can't just jump to that yet. How do we let people find things that they like? And I initially told Paul, I was like, I'm not a perfumer. I'm not. But there's a whole bunch of tech that we had to build. So the whole tech is all the back end database, getting all the different permutations of fragrance combinations. Build it. Also when Neil or Sally try something and they give us a thumbs up or thumbs down and then we start collecting enough data, then we know what all the compounds, the numerous compounds are in that fragrance. Then we can start doing analysis that hey, people that like X, Y and z might like 1, 2 and 3.

It's a multi variable algorithm, right?

Exactly. So all that is on the back end. We need to build out. Plus I love product myself. I do a lot of product and the marketing and the business. So I was helping put together the product design the actual packaging and I love physical product. It's such a pain, right?

Yeah.

Software, so much easier. But there's something rewarding, this feeling and seeing something tangible.

Yeah, right.

That's awesome. So what's the status of with right now?

So we got pre seed funding. We just launched 60 days ago.

Okay, congrats.

Thank you. And we launched and we've been testing a lot of lot of different components and no, we're feeling really good because we keep knocking down all the little things here and there, like price testing, the actual offer testing, ad testing. We had incredibly high CPA and we keep iterating on the ads and the targeting demographic iterate on the value proposition. Combine that with pricing and we've been able to bring that down to almost basically to where I think we're at a comfortable place. If we bring it down a little bit more. But it started astronomically high. You know, you couldn't sustain that.

Sure.

It's only 60 days though.

Yeah, exactly.

We've been.

Yeah.

And then refining the.

Oh yeah.

And then refining the product and the shipping and.

Oh yeah.

But it's been a lot of fun.

That's really cool. So where is it headed? What's the kind of the future status? Where do you want with to go?

Our vision for WIF is to become the consumer packaged goods company of the future.

Okay.

And what I mean by that is that let's quickly talk about the vision for the company. The joke is we just say we're a couple dudes just working on perfumes. But that's the joke part. The real part is that we eventually want to take with and allow influencers to start making their own scents. So right now the. The market is designed so that you have to be like a top aaa like Paris Hilton, Britney Spears to get your own scent. Paris Hilton sold I think almost $2 billion in fragrance.

Really?

Yeah.

Britney Spears. Spears supposedly sold a billion and has made, I think, more selling her perfume than music.

Really?

Yeah.

Incredible.

Crazy stats, huh?

Yeah.

So our goal is that whiff is not a perfume. We don't make our own perfume. We are the technology and the platform for anyone to make their own perfume. So we're going to start with VIP influencers. So imagine a Jenna Marbles or someone like that online YouTube with I think 17 million followers. If she were to make her own. I made my own. This is my own scent. She's not selling anyone else's product. She's selling actually her own product. And then she uses our platform to make it, to distribute it. That's all you have. You don't have to do anything. And then she gets a revenue share. So that's the model of wif. And then once we scale that up, we can start allowing more of the general masses to create their own. The whole idea is that we should be. Everyone should be able to go in and create their own using our system. That's really cool. So that's one component. Then once you know what fragrance or smells you like. And this is for guys and girls, I should say also guys, because we'll make cologne and deodorants. You can take that scent and then you can put it into pretty much any other product. You can put it into soaps, bath bomb shampoos, air fresheners, anything you want. And so that's where we want to become a consumer package goods company that's customized for your actual fragrance. And you can see, you can already kind of picture there's a massive amount of technology on the back end that has to be created.

Yeah, for sure. Is there anything unique about San Diego that kind of gives you some kind of creative advantage or some kind of advantage for doing it here?

You know what's been interesting is that it's a really good question. We have a good network of technology people here that are able to build the tech that we need. And I mean, you could say that about other places, but I mean, just with our network we've been able to quickly put together a team. Then the other thing that's really nice is that because our proximity to whole LA and the manufacturing side, we've had access to printing, packaging, manufacturing, I mean, a lot of that. Some of these companies, when I found their locations, they're literally like driving distance from us. So I was shocked. So that was actually great. Instead of having to order supplies or equipment from across the country.

Yeah, interesting.

Yeah.

I'm sure there's something there also around the bio compounds that you're doing.

Right.

I imagine you're pretty scientific on that. And we've got to have the bio talent here, that's for sure.

Right.

And then with some of the things that we're doing with the old fragrance and trying to mix and mix mask quantities and kind of our future products and back end that a lot of the biotech people that we talk to, like, we don't. You can't cross contaminate smells. How would we do this without cross contaminating? And they have some really interesting equipment in the biotech space that we can use for the consumer space.

I wonder, the beer space too. I bet the craft beer space probably could also lend to this too, right?

Yeah, no, the craft beer has. We go there for inspiration.

Yeah.

We go there to blow off steam.

Well, speaking of a little bit more about San Diego, what's your favorite beer in town?

You know, the favorite brewery that I've grown up with here is Belching Beaver.

Oh yeah? Yeah.

They're up here in north county, just east of Palomar Airport. I don't know what that. Is that technically Vista or is that San Marcos? I don't know where it is, but it's right in that area just east of Palomar Airport. And we went in there when it was just a tiny. It was still small. They had the brewing equipment, but there was no patio. You just drank inside the actual warehouse. And. And of all the craziest things they had there to go with beer. There was no food there, but there was an old guy with a little push cart. Like 80 year old little white dude with tats all over his arm. Looked like he just got out of prison. And he's making sushi.

Oh, really? That's awesome.

When we walked in there, when we first walked in there sober, we're like, man, that's some scary sushi. I don't know if I want to eat that. And then a few pints later, he's thinking, that's the best sushi in the world.

Yeah.

What about other favorites in town? Do you have a favorite coffee place?

I like. I like Phil's Coffee.

Okay. Yeah, yeah.

The pour overs.

Yeah.

It's awesome.

Heard to beat Phil's for sure.

Yeah. Ice.

Ice Mint mojitos.

Phil's is great. I haven't. Oh, I did try that. That is awesome.

Yeah. Yep.

So Phil's is great for coffee. I like Belching Beaver for beer. The. The. The new location I like is the one with the best view is viewpoint.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

One of my favorites for sure.

I love hanging out out there.

Yep.

Over in Del Mar.

Yep.

What about tacos? Got a favorite taco shop?

No, no, I don't have a favorite taco. I have a favorite taco shop, but not because of the tacos.

Okay.

It's close to my house. It's in San Marcos called Las Brisas.

Okay.

And they make awesome chicken soup and elondigas.

Okay.

Albondigas.

Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Cool.

That's awesome. Dude, your story is so incredible. And how cool how many companies you've created here. Probably so many jobs you've created, so many different technologies. It's pretty cool.

Ye.

It's been fun. We got divx up to a couple hundred people. Prima got up to about 45, 50 people.

Yep.

Yeah, it's been a lot. I mean, we raised a lot of money, had some good. We've had some fantastic exits. We've had some pushes and we've had some losses.

Sure.

So, yeah, it seems like it comes out pretty good for everyone.

Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, you want them all to be winners. But you know, God, Neil, I think the ones that were pushes and losses, I think I'd learned more like prima. That was a six year run. First four years was like the best times of my life. Unbelievable. And we got to do a whole nother thing on the crazy things that have happened there. But then the last two years were absolutely miserable. But I learned so much the last two years.

Yeah, I bet.

Yeah.

Interesting. Maybe we'll do like a fail fast podcast or something. You know, like learning from failure.

Oh, it'd be painful, but it's good.

Cathartic.

Yeah.

I've told people about certain things and when they say, wow, how did you know that? You know? Because I just lived that. Trust me, you're about to live it too, if you don't listen to me.

For sure.

Yeah.

Well, thanks for giving back to the ecosystem, that's for sure. I mean, I know how many founders you mentor while you're also building these businesses, so really appreciate that and really excited to watch Wyft grow.

Yeah.

And how can people find your follower? Are you on Twitter or anything like that?

I don't tweet a lot. I have an account, but I don't tweet a lot. You know, I connect with a lot of people on LinkedIn.

Okay.

Probably the fastest, easiest way to stay connected with me.

Cool.

Awesome. Thanks so much, Jason. Thanks for joining us on the Tacos and Tech podcast with Neil Bloom. Thanks again to Cox Business for helping make this possible by expanding the reach of the San Diego tech ecosystem. This has been a partnership with the San Diego Venture Group and the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation's SD Life Changing Campaign. You can find Neil Bloom on Twitter eealbloom and on LinkedIn. And join us next time when we have Samantha Urban, CEO of Urban Translations. On the next episode.