Episode 44: On Starting a Japanese Food Subscription Box Independently with Danny Taing, Founder and CEO at Bokksu

In the latest episode of Subscriptions: Scaled, we meet with Danny Taing, Founder and CEO at Bokksu.

Bokksu offers premium subscription boxes of snacks, treats, and candies originating from Japan. In the episode, we learn everything from how Danny dealt with logistics when developing the brand, to the social channels he uses for marketing.

Keep reading to learn all about Bokksu and Danny’s journey to creating the brand.

Bokksu

The episode begins with Danny explaining the concept of Bokksu.

Bokksu aims to allow customers to discover and taste authentic Japanese snack foods, monthly. The brand directly partners with old family snack makers across Japan. The exotic snacks are sourced directly in Japan, and the subscription boxes are packed there, too.

Bokksu ships its boxes directly to customers' doors in about 100 countries around the world. The brand was created about six years ago, and currently there isn’t another product like it available anywhere else.

Starting Bokksu

Danny explains why he started the subscription box and shares his experience of first creating the brand alone. While Danny has been back in New York City for eight years, he lived in Japan for four years.

He explains that he was living in Tokyo. In Tokyo, Danny was working and studying Japanese in the city.

During the four years he lived in Japan, Danny traveled throughout the country. He ate plenty of food and snacks from all over Japan, including many foods he had never seen before. He noticed that many of these interesting Japanese snacks were produced in family businesses in certain areas that could not be found elsewhere.

When Danny moved back to America, he brought back many snacks in his suitcase to share with his friends. When everybody loved the snacks, he realized there could be potential for a business. Danny decided to create a snack business that could connect Japan with the rest of the world.

In late 2015 and early 2016, Danny performed a beta run of Bokksu to test the concept. It had excellent feedback. The brand officially launched in April 2016 to around 40 subscribers, mainly consisting of friends supporting him. And from there, Bokksu grew.

Later in the episode, we learn that Danny went on to find a business partner, and he explains how this helped Bokksu grow as a brand.

Logistics

Danny also discusses the logistics of setting up Bokksu and the challenges it brought. As the boxes are all sourced and packed in Japan, this brought an extra difficulty with logistics.

Danny explains that the whole logistics of Bokksu has been a huge evolution over time. In the beginning, he was packing boxes in New York. At that time, he didn’t have the volume to work with a partner.

Danny used items he brought back in his suitcases from Japan to pack into boxes. He would purchase the products in Japan, bring them home, then package them to send to customers.

As the brand grew, this method, of course, became unsustainable. Then Danny started shipping products over from Japan. He continued this path with about 500 subscribers.

But Danny’s apartment soon overflowed with Japanese food products, and it became a bit out of control. At this point, Danny had a couple of part-time workers helping to pack, but it got to the point where they couldn’t load quickly enough, and it was taking up too much time.

That’s when the team started looking into working with some type of partner in Japan. About a year and a half into starting the business, Danny moved Bokksu’s logistics and operations to Japan.

Bokksu’s Customer Base

We learn about the brand’s customer base, which consists of people who are foodies or are interested in learning about Japanese culture.

Danny explains that Bokksu has a fairly diverse customer base. A lot of people are surprised when they hear that around 75 percent of the brand’s subscriber base is non-Asian. 

It's Bokksu’s mission to bridge cultures. So Japanese expats living abroad aren't actually the brand’s key demographic. 

Firstly, Japanese expats living abroad don’t need to learn how to discover Japan through snacks. Plus, it’s also a very small audience. To Danny, selling Japanese products to Japanese people isn’t so impactful for him, and he wants to sell his boxes to people who want to explore Japanese culture.

Danny explains that a lot of subscribers are interested in a particular Japanese culture they experienced when visiting the country. Perhaps they had a honeymoon or special event there and want something to remind them every month of their time there. He also shares that there are a lot of foodies interested in Bokksu, people who want to explore new cultures, textures, and flavors they’ve never experienced before.

The team at Bokksu cares about what goes into its boxes, so the quality of the food is high. The team always has a final test of the products that go in, so if something doesn’t taste good, it doesn’t go in. 

There are also customers who weren’t interested in Japanese culture before but want to give Bokksu boxes a try. Because the food quality is so high, many of these customers continue with their subscriptions.

Marketing 

We learn what marketing techniques work best for Bokksu. Danny explains that one of the main channels they use to advertise is YouTube, and they hope to capitalize on using TikTok soon. 

Danny shares that the world of digital marketing has changed a lot. While Facebook ads used to be important, now Bokksu don’t use them so much.

Bokksu works with a lot of YouTube creators to advertise their boxes. They partner with them, sponsor them, and send them products to eat and review in their videos. Then the YouTube creators shout out for the brand.

The team generally looks for YouTube creators that have an audience interested in Asian culture or food. Danny explains that advertising on YouTube has given Bokksu around 50 percent of their acquisition. 

We also learn all about the subscription model and how the team at Bokksu aims to retain customers.

The episode comes to a close with Danny sharing what he thinks the future of Bokksu looks like.

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