Travis Thul
Appearances
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
The feedback we received consistently was, this is great, this is awesome, we'll sell millions. We just need you to pony up $200,000 or $300,000 up front.
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
Yeah, so the proposal to give this one last rodeo on Kickstarter seemed really intuitive. I hired a marketing team, I hired a graphic designer, I hired a mechanical engineer, a couple other folks that have helped put together the social media presence, build the webpage, build out some more three-dimensional renders. Of course, we've done the prototyping and the experimentation.
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
So really, I think putting ourselves in a position where if Kickstarter has the interest that we hope it will, we might be able to get a good product to some early adopters in the not too distant future.
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
This whole conversation started out of failing gloriously, right? There was a point 10 years ago where I thought, how on earth could this fail? This is such a simple concept with a huge audience, right? This is literally the coffee maker for ramen noodles, which everybody eats. And of course, we were not successful the first rodeo. So I want to temper expectations. I would be happy to be surprised.
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
Oh, my. Maybe there's a 10% chance that we raised that $300,000. I think that's probably just being an engineer. I think that's the more statistically relevant reality.
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
But I think, you know, maybe the hope springs eternal in all of us failed and successful entrepreneurs that, you know, we get that visibility and there's somebody out there and says, you know what, this has a potential George Foreman grill style market. Why don't we give this a go, given that the investment is relatively small, given the market size?
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
If there was a celebrity to link to the ramen now, who would it be? Oh, man. So I'm out of touch with pop culture like I was. Can we get the kid that played Chunk from the Goonies? I feel like that would be a great voice for my generation. Aaron Rodgers, he's very popular, I guess, in New York, which would be a great place to go. Tom Brady, he's still around. Presumably, we could go with him.
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
What if you go upstream a little bit, like Barack Obama might...
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
Yeah, Barack Obama did a very good episode with Anthony Bourdain where they were eating noodles in Vietnam. Barack Obama eating ramen out of my ramen maker would be, I guess I could call it a day at that point. I think the Obama now could be a potential kitchen appliance.
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
Well, you know, if you can't enjoy your ramen the way you want to when you want to, what's the point of it all? What else is there? Well played, sir. Well played. World peace is very important, but I want to assure that when we have that peaceful world, everybody in it can eat ramen now.
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
I'm going to do this experimental class and I'm going to call it Failure 101.
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
The 39 cent ramen noodle brick is really a foundational component of what can be a hugely experimental meal. And I say this with all seriousness.
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
Every single bit of feedback we received was, this is a great idea, but... Grit versus quit.
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
Fantastic. Travis Thull. I'm a director of operations and senior fellow at the University of Minnesota. Also a reserve Coast Guard officer currently serving with the joint staff.
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
Yeah, this was a United States Coast Guard Telecommunications and Information Systems Command just south of Washington, D.C., adjacent to Fort Belvoir. And when you're a junior officer on active duty, you are officer of the day on a rotation, which means you are on site for 24 hours and you're responsible for security, making sure doors are locked, gates are locked, nothing crazy is going on.
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
That evening rolls around, and I'm at my desk, and I'm hungry. I want something to eat. Like most young engineers, I had a supply of ramen noodles, and I've got my secret stash, so I grab a pack. In my building, we had a little tiny kitchenette, 50 or 60 old coffee cups that haven't been washed, and miscellaneous packets of Chinese seasoning.
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
And I open the microwave, and it looks like somebody just microwaved spaghetti in it. I'm just really struggling to figure out how I'm going to get this dehydrated block of goodness into an edible capacity. And I notice that there is a coffee maker. So I grab the coffee pot. I fill it up, you know, as much as I think necessary.
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
The ramen will be broken in half because you can't actually fit it through the hole in the top of the pot. So break the ramen up. But the problem is the water ratio is way off. The drip mechanism is not appropriate. And then you can't stick a spoon into a coffee pot, right? Like the ergonomics of it is a fail. But, you know, desperate times call for desperate measures.
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
So, you know, I was able to get a 60 or 70% cooked ramen meal. And as I'm trying to get the fork into the thing and get the noodles out, I'm thinking to myself, if only I knew an engineer, you know, I feel like there's something here.
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
I start doodling on some paper and think, you know, the next day, a friend of mine from Milwaukee who I went to college with who was a mechanical engineer, I called him up and I'm like, hey, I got this crazy idea.
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
The Ramen Now is a Keurig for ramen noodles, which are the most consumed noodle product on Earth with hundreds of millions of packages eaten annually. We can do to ramen what the Keurig did for coffee.
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
It blew my mind that something like this didn't exist. Every college student would have, in my opinion, I would have had, my grandmother would have bought me this for Christmas. Like, here you go. Every grandmother would buy this for their kid in college. It seemed just too obvious. But lo and behold, no one had ever put it together. Phil was excited.
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
We had some prototypes. We successfully pursued some patents. And we were very successful in pitching the product to major U.S. appliance brands. And the feedback we received consistently was, this is great. This is awesome. We'll sell millions. We just need you to pony up, you know, $200,000 or $300,000 up front for the tooling and the manufacturing process.
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
My experience was if you're not inventing an app that has very low overhead and very easy distribution potentiality. Building a novel kitchen appliance is much more difficult to convince people to throw hundreds of thousands of dollars your way. We ran out of prospective companies to license to and, you know, resources to make it happen.
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
As you go through this process, people know what you're working on. So friends, parents, hey, how's the project? You were really close, right? What happened? Every time that question comes up, then you have to kind of recite, well... And as graceful language as possible, you know, we ended up failing. I'm an optimist.
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
If you ever listen to an Adele song, like any of Adele's work, she does good stuff. All of her songs, not all, some of the best ones are about breakups. So, yeah, she had a relationship that didn't work. It inspired this next second order effect that turned out to be really great. And I've tried to keep perspective that, you know, we've spent a lot of money. We spent a lot of time.
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
We did something unique. We got some patents, which for an engineer, having real legitimate utility patents is a feather in your cap, something I'm very proud of. And I try to hope that, you know, maybe that song didn't chart anything. But maybe someday, you know, there'll be an opportunity to sing it again.
Freakonomics Radio
How to Succeed at Failing, Part 3: Grit vs. Quit (Update)
There is nothing more that I would love to see in my lifetime to see this thing on the shelf and see one college kid go, you know what? I'm eating slightly unhealthy food because of you, Travis. I would love that.