Overview

In this episode of the Advice Line, host Guy Raz is joined by Chieh Huang, co-founder of the now-bankrupt online bulk retailer Boxed, to counsel three early-stage founders wrestling with classic scaling dilemmas. The conversation moves from a beef tallow skincare maker debating whether to leave his kitchen for a co-manufacturer, to a horse-tail-tie inventor weighing a partnership with a major pet distributor, to an anti-inflammatory coffee founder trying to balance functional potency with brewability. Throughout, Huang offers raw, hard-won perspective from his own journey through Boxed's meteoric rise and painful collapse, arguing that founders should embrace outside capital when it enables growth, prioritize solving the next bottleneck over protecting equity, and remember that entrepreneurship is ultimately about enjoying the problem-solving itself.

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5:12The Boxed Bankruptcy and What It Taught Chieh Huang

Guy Raz asks Huang directly about the emotional and practical aftermath of Boxed's bankruptcy in 2023, after the company went public in 2021 and then collapsed as pandemic-era e-commerce demand normalized. Huang describes the experience as "wild, traumatic" but says he would still sign up for the entire decade again because of the people he met and the lessons learned. He identifies several macro factors that doomed Boxed: being a newly public, unprofitable, small-cap company with an "e-commerce COVID story" meant that as the stock price fell, vendors and partners became spooked, creating a self-reinforcing downward spiral. Even with nearly $20 million in cash remaining, the collective decision was to sell the software business to BlackRock and shut down the e-commerce operation (which has since been resurrected without Huang's involvement). When pressed on what he could have done differently, Huang acknowledges that "we probably need 10 hours of tape" to cover all his regrets, but emphasizes that hindsight is 20/20 and that macro forces were genuinely overwhelming.

After Boxed, Huang took a role at the World Economic Forum, where a recruiter convinced him to join despite his initial skepticism. That experience gave him a global macroeconomic perspective and, crucially, introduced him to his new co-founder, Frank D'Souza, who co-founded and was CEO of Cognizant. Together they launched Pelgo (P-E-L-G-O), an outplacement service designed to help workers transition between jobs in an AI-disrupted economy. Huang explains that traditional outplacement costs several thousand dollars and is typically reserved for executives, so Pelgo aims to offer the same service at a fraction of the cost for everyone. He describes his current emotional state as "stress is up 100%, but my happiness is up 500%."

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10:16Alec's Surfing Cow: Scaling Out of the Kitchen

The first caller is Alec from Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California, founder of Surfing Cow, a skincare brand built around beef tallow. His hero product is a mineral sun balm, followed by a moisturizer, both made with rendered beef fat—an ingredient Alec's sister introduced him to and that he found more skin-compatible than chemical sunscreens. Alec launched in January 2025, did nearly $74,000 in revenue in his first year, and is on track for $200,000–$250,000 in 2026, with orders growing from 3–5 per day to 20–25 per day through social media marketing. He is still making everything himself in his home kitchen, packing orders, and writing handwritten thank-you notes. His question: what levers should he pull to grow without losing the "soul" of the brand?

Both Raz and Huang immediately agree that Alec's top priority must be finding a co-manufacturer. Huang warns that if 3,000 orders arrive tomorrow, Alec's neighbors will be angry and his kitchen will be overwhelmed. He argues that late or substandard orders become "an Alec problem, not a customer problem." Raz elaborates: Alec needs to lock down his formula, test for shelf stability and heat resistance, and then find a small-to-mid-size FDA-registered contract manufacturer, ideally in California or Utah, that specializes in natural products and works with early-stage brands. Raz estimates that getting a sunscreen (which is regulated as an OTC drug) through FDA registration with an original formula could cost $50,000–$80,000 per SKU and take 9–12 months.

When Alec expresses reluctance to take outside capital, having self-funded so far, Huang pushes back forcefully. He argues that most businesses are binary—either they become very big or they become nothing—and that worrying about diluting 15% of a potential billion-dollar business is a "first-world problem." His line: "You don't want to have happen is that it could have been a billion-dollar business but you didn't want to give up 15% of the company. So it's a zero-dollar business today." Raz adds that Alec should raise no more than $50,000, from people he knows, in small checks, rather than seeking institutional capital at this stage. On finding the right co-manufacturer, Raz advises treating it like dating, not marriage: test the waters, expect to make mistakes, and recognize that some brands use the same partner forever while others switch multiple times.

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30:25Jessica's Tail Cinch: The Chewy Dilemma

The second caller is Jessica Dubin from Indio, California, founder of Tail Cinch, an equine products brand. Her hero product is a reusable tail tie for horses, originally designed for polo ponies. The status quo was electrical tape, which Jessica found wasteful and potentially painful for horses (especially on the exposed skin at the base of the tail). Her product uses Velcro, a faux leather exterior, and silicone grips to stay in place. Despite expanding into other horse-care products like fly protection, her revenue has plateaued at $70,000–$80,000 per year for four years. Her question: should she get her products onto platforms like Chewy or ValleyVet, even if margins are thin, as a brand-awareness play?

Huang asks a clarifying question about whether Jessica's expansion products are gaining traction, because that affects his answer. She confirms that the tail ties still account for at least 50% of sales, but the new products have received great feedback. Huang then gives a conditional yes: if Tail Cinch were a single-product brand, listing on Chewy might cannibalize direct sales and erode margins. But because Jessica has multiple products, the platform can serve as a customer-acquisition funnel—people buy the tail tie on Chewy, discover the other products, and then go directly to her website for future purchases. He warns, however, about the working capital trap: large retailers expect long payment cycles (up to six months), and if Jessica has to factor those receivables (sell them to a finance company for early cash), the fees will further compress her already thin margins.

Raz adds that the real growth opportunity lies not in e-commerce platforms but in changing behavior at competitions, through trainers, and at barns—the places where horse owners actually gather. He notes that there hasn't been much innovation in horse products, which creates an opening for Jessica to disrupt stale categories. Huang chimes in with a data point: he quickly searched and found that the total addressable market for horse gear and apparel is $20 billion. Both hosts emphasize that horse owners, like pet owners, are not price-sensitive—they will spend whatever it takes on their animals. Huang suggests exploring the overlap between horse owners and other pet owners (dogs, barn cats) as a way to target Chewy's audience more effectively.

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42:25Eli's Makor Coffee: Function vs. Brewability

The third caller is Eli Mash from Minneapolis, co-founder of Makor Coffee, an organic coffee brand blended with anti-inflammatory spices: cacao, turmeric, Ceylon cinnamon, chaga mushroom, cayenne pepper, and ginger. Eli started putting turmeric in his coffee a decade ago and realized that most people forget to take supplements, but nobody forgets their morning coffee. The business is currently a side project alongside his full-time software sales job; he has three young daughters. Makor does $200,000–$300,000 in annual revenue, 95% online, with about 300 monthly subscribers, and has recently entered about 40 retail doors in Minnesota. His problem: the fine spice particles cause the coffee to brew slower in drip machines, and if someone brews more than six cups, the filter can overflow, ruining the experience. Should he modify the formula for bulk brewing or protect the original taste?

Huang frames the tradeoff with a question from one of his own investors: "Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?" He argues that modifying the formula for larger batches (like office coffee machines) could open a massive distribution channel. Office coffee is a "knife fight" of an industry, but once a brand is in, it becomes an annuity—office managers will do anything to avoid switching. Huang can imagine an office coffee machine with two buttons: "regular" and "anti-inflammatory," and predicts many people would choose the latter. That exposure could then drive home subscriptions.

Raz suggests a different approach: instead of modifying the whole-bean formula, Eli could create a separate instant version—single-serve freeze-dried packets that include the spices, similar to how Justin's Nut Butter exploded when it introduced single-use pouches. Raz recalls being skeptical of pouched peanut butter at first, then finding himself grateful for one on a hike. Huang agrees, noting that pouches are also a great way to let people trial the product. Both hosts encourage Eli to lean into the "feature, not bug" narrative: the current blend is optimized for French press or pour-over, and the hardcore anti-inflammatory crowd will naturally gravitate toward those methods. A separate formulation for drip machines or an instant version could capture the office and on-the-go markets without compromising the original product's integrity.

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55:38Chieh Huang's Parting Wisdom: The Reward Is the Journey

In the episode's closing segment, Raz asks Huang the question he poses to all returning guests: if you could go back to your 2013 self, what would you say? Huang's answer is deliberately simple: "You chose to be an entrepreneur and the reward is the journey." He acknowledges that this sounds cliché, but argues that every entrepreneur experiences the same reality—problem after problem, loneliness, stress. The three callers on this episode could have brought up twenty more challenges each if given more time. Yet Huang, now nearly two decades into his entrepreneurial career, says he genuinely enjoys it and hopes to be back on the show at age 75 with another new company. The core motivation, he says, is solving problems and affecting people in a positive way.

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Conclusion

This episode matters because it captures the messy, non-linear reality of building a business through the lens of three very different founders—and because Chieh Huang brings the credibility of someone who has experienced both spectacular success and public failure. His advice is refreshingly unsentimental: take outside capital if it helps you grow, modify your product if it opens a bigger market, and don't let the perfect be the enemy of the big. At the same time, he never loses sight of the human element—the loneliness, the stress, the joy of solving problems. The episode leaves the listener with a clear sense that entrepreneurship is not about avoiding mistakes but about making them, learning from them, and choosing to enjoy the ride anyway.

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Key takeaways

• Prioritize scaling infrastructure over protecting equity. Chieh Huang argues that founders should not hesitate to take outside capital if it enables growth, because a 15% stake in a billion-dollar business is far better than 100% of a zero-dollar business.
• Find a co-manufacturer before demand overwhelms you. Guy Raz advises founders to lock down their formula, test for stability, and partner with a small-to-mid-size contract manufacturer early, treating the relationship as dating rather than marriage.
• Use large retail platforms as customer-acquisition funnels, not just revenue channels. Listing on Chewy or similar platforms can drive brand awareness and direct-to-consumer sales, but only if you have multiple products to upsell and you account for long payment cycles and factoring costs.
• Modify your product for the largest addressable channel, even if it means compromising slightly. Huang's "do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?" framework applies directly to Eli's coffee blend: a slightly less potent version for office drip machines could unlock a massive annuity-style distribution channel.
• Consider alternative product formats to solve technical constraints. Raz's suggestion of instant single-serve pouches (inspired by Justin's Nut Butter) shows that changing the delivery mechanism can bypass brewing problems while opening new use cases like hiking, camping, and office break rooms.
• Horse and pet owners are not price-sensitive. Both hosts emphasize that targeting niche, passionate audiences (like equestrians) can yield defensible markets with high margins, because owners will spend whatever it takes on their animals.
• The reward of entrepreneurship is the journey itself, not the exit. Huang's closing reflection—that he would relive the Boxed rollercoaster despite the trauma—underscores that founders should find satisfaction in solving problems and helping people, not just in financial outcomes.