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3491 19th St
San Francisco, CA 94110
USA

415-967-2622

We grew up drinking milk tea and to this day are still obsessed about it. We started Boba Guys as a way to share the milk tea we remember from our childhood (only this time with fresh ingredients; none of the powdered stuff).

We use only the finest ingredients: Straus Family Creamery organic milk accompanied with homebrewed heirloom organic tea from Five Mountains. Our syrup and almond jelly is homemade and we use Grade A balls. (We just like saying that. )

Boba Guys Blog

UPDATE: BERKELEY POP-UP

Bin Chen

Boba Guys and Gals,
Our pop-up in Berkeley is closed indefinitely. We’ve been trying over the last month to update our listing on Yelp but it hasn’t changed, so we want to announce this on our Facebook page. (Sorry to those who find this irrelevant!)

As many of you know, we are about radical transparency, so here’s the situation. It’s mainly due to staffing. Eek! We LOVED being in Berkeley as it’s where Andrew spent his undergrad and grad. The lines, chats, and passionate fans made it all worth it. However, as we tried to ramp up again, we felt like we couldn’t execute Berkeley without compromising on quality. And for us, we pride ourselves on being one of the highest quality boba shops in the world for both our product and customer service.

So here’s the plan: we’re hiring like crazy, but we need someone who can manage the post out there in Berkeley. We also need someone who can help lead the team there. All of our current team leads are staffed on other sites/projects. And because our processes are so unique, we can’t hire just any person who managed cafes or other boba shops… we’ve tried and it doesn’t work for us. We make almost everything in-house and work with hard-to-access ingredients like Straus organic milk or Califia Farms almond milk… the processes and relationships are hard for newbies to pick up immediately.

Bottom line: our alcoholic boba in Berkeley is on hold indefinitely. We’re looking for good people represent us in Berkeley, so if you have any leads, let us know! Our email is info [at] bobaguys.com.

We’ll also put this announcement on our blog and website. We’ll continue pinging Yelp to get our listing updated. Sorry in advance for any confusion.

Thanks again and ‪#‎FightThePowder‬!

Andrew & Bin

Bin Chen

The day has finally come…the grand opening of Boba Guys Union Square!

Where? 429 Stockton St.
When? Saturday, Sept 27 from 12pm-10pm

If you’ve been following our journey, you might have picked up that we are more than just next-level boba and tea without powders. We know we’re no longer the new kid on the block. However, our mission has always been about building community, bridging cultures and doing the right thing.

So we’ve partnered up with Little Brothers - Friends of the Elderly - San Francisco Chapter and we’ll be donating all of our profits from our grand opening just like we did with our Mission store grand opening!

We have far too many people to thank for helping us get this far…from our customers, to our families and friends as well as our kickstarter backers! We hope you’ll stop and help us celebrate!

Emotional Intelligence in Small Businesses

Bin Chen

We used to be a lot better about sharing our internal workings. When we had a column on GOOD, the self-imposed deadlines forced us to share anything and everything about our business practices. As we’re gearing up to open our second official location in Union Square, we wanted to share an email we sent to all our Team Leads (shift leads, catering leads, etc) from a while back. It gives you a glimpse into how we manage our teams and strive for excellence. 

We’ve been getting a lot of emails about entrepreneurship and marketing strategy lately. We want to apologize in advance for our super slow response. We’re about bringing people together and being transparent, so we hope to answer all your questions one day. In the meantime, you might come across this post because we directed you to it. We don’t mean to be so impersonal, but captures our sentiment about leading small teams better than any email I write in haste. 

Cheers!

Andrew

 

_______________________________________

Leads,

Bin and I have been talking with most of you about Emotional Intelligence in our 1:1s. It’s something that’s hard to convey in person, much less in a document. However, for many of us, we need multiple sources of stimuli to converge in order to hit home. I’m just passing this stimuli. =)

Article: What Makes a Leader? 

The first article (attached) is the hot lens in modern management. As Bin and I have said to each one of you, our servant leadership values is just an extension of having strong character and solid EQ (Emotional Intelligence). I read this as an undergrad (20 y.o.) and I went through it again in grad school (27 y.o.). I then came across this a third time as I’ve been meeting CEOs and government leaders (32 y.o.). My point is this thing has been passed around like a hot letter in high school! It’s timeless!

The biggest takeaway is this chart captures the EQ-level that all Shift Leads, Managers, and Committee Leads (e.g. Tea People, R&D) should have one day. As we hire more people, the bar only gets higher, so we want to make sure our current team, you, is prepared for our growth.

Article: Can You Really Improve Your EQ? 

http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/05/can-you-really-improve-your-em/

I know not everyone wants to be a “leader” and manage a team. That being said, I think everyone does want to improve their situation, both professionally and personally. Also, leadership manifests itself in every social situation, from friendships to your family. This is a good way blueprint on improving EQ. I know it sounds self-help, but almost every C-level executive in the Fortune 500 and government leader reads Harvard Business Review, so please read it with an open mind.

Here are the highlights from this article:

  1. Your level of EQ is firm, but not rigid.
  2. Good coaching programs do work.
  3. But you can only improve if you get accurate feedback.
  4. Some techniques (and coaches) are more competent than others. 
  5. Some people are more coachable than others. 

Interview: The Truth about Great Leaders

http://www.forbes.com/sites/danschawbel/2014/03/18/daniel-goleman-the-truth-about-what-makes-a-great-leader/

I was given this article by one of my mentors. It’s a quick read that covers all the holes that are missing in the first two resources. My favorite points:

  • “Studies conducted by companies evaluating their own executives have proven that the top 10% of performers displayed superior competencies in emotional intelligence, rather than in purely cognitive thinking.”

  • “The smart leader can get results in the short-term, the wise leader can net results in both the short and the long-term.”

Sorry to blast you with two self-helpish emails. I send this to our Leads because you guys are the driving force of Boba Guys. With all the great press this week, Bin and I count on you to fulfill the promise we make to the public. We are a team– no one part is better or more important than the other. That’s why we need everyone well-greased and working properly. (Sorry, I just had to watch the latest Cars movie for work.)

Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks,

Andrew

[link to this article]

Bin Chen

We’re pleased to introduce our first line of premium Boba Guys enamel camp mugs! They’re perfect for tea (or coffee) out in the woods or in the comfort of your own home. We sourced them from a manufacturer in Europe who still uses WWII era equipment to produce these classic and sturdy cups. Each steel mug is coated in hand-dipped enamel, with a double layer on the handle and rim to keep them going strong.

*Please note these mugs are made by hand, resulting in small bits of character that make them truly unique.

Bin Chen

As most of you know, San Francisco is home to some of the world’s best coffee roasters.

After rounds and rounds of cuppings, we have finally selected our winner! We are proud to announce that we have chosen De La Paz!

We chose DLP not only because of their ‪#‎nextlevelquality‬ but also because they share our philosophy on the potential for blends. Our coffee milk tea is the first item to use the beans, but our partnership already has us working on new and exciting things for the future!

Bin Chen

It might be easy to just think of us as just a cafe (albeit serving the highest quality ingredients in the world for boba) but we’re actually comprised of accomplished entrepreneurs, bakers, product designers photographers and writers! In other words, we have a lot in common with many of our customers!

Because we value transparency so much, we hope to start sharing more behind the scenes work that we do that might not be immediately obvious at first glance. Here’s our “work in progress” menu wireframe designed by our new team member Jesse based on feedback we’ve received from customers

Bin Chen

We want to write a post about the goodness of our fans and their effect on our lives. We really do have the best customers and fans in the world. 

Last week, I was working the register for an entire shift. I usually don’t work the register for such a long period, but we’ve been getting back into daily operations to see what we can improve on for the new store.

In three separate instances, a customer randomly tells me that we’re doing a great job and that we are onto something. The first time I heard it, I was just in shock. I asked her about what prompted her comment and she said, “I read some comments about Boba Guys online.” I asked her to elaborate and she said, “For a bubble tea place, you sure have some haters.” I heard the same sentiment again an hour later.

Then, one of our regulars comes in. She has been coming in for a really long time, ever since we opened the shop last June. Our conversations usually stay at the surface level of shared pleasantries. However, it was different that day. She randomly says, “I read a couple reviews and I am sad to see what some people write about you. They don’t get what you guys are about. Don’t mind them.” My heart grew three times that day. It was what we needed to hear at that moment.

You see, public perception is a topic that few business owners ever write about. Some might say it’s a bit too transparent. But we’re not writing just to our fans, we’re writing for small business owners across America.

The reality is that us business owners know what people say about us (well, the ones that care do). Many of you know that Bin and I come from the corporate world. In both the corporate world and business school, you are conditioned to withstand criticism. You develop very, very thick skin. But we’re all human at the end of the day, so believe it or not– we have feelings!

When Bin and I started Boba Guys and subsequently chose to use #FightThePowder and #DoTheRightThing as our Kickstarter taglines, we knew our positioning could potentially polarize the public. Some people get what we do, others don’t. By saying we are the highest quality boba shop in the world and that we don’t use powders, it is drawing attention to the fact that other shops use ingredients of lesser quality. We understand how it sounds.

To us, it’s less about something being inferior, but rather it’s about positioning. In fact, we always get asked about our favorite boba shops and we openly recommend them (for the record, we like Wonderful Foods in SF and Half & Half in SoCal, but Sharetea is our favorite mega chain). We emphasize quality because that helps us achieve our mission in changing perceptions in boba and tea– it’s an industry where quality is not expected. If we went with a low-cost strategy, then we’d be no different than most of the boba shops in the world.

 

In business school, I was taught that all companies make a trade-off between cost and quality. You almost always get what you pay for (despite what my Asian relatives think!) And if there’s arbitrage, it won’t last long because people will surely find it and abuse it until the opportunity is gone. In a pseudo-free market, you are only successful if your product is in demand despite viable alternatives.

And that’s what struck me this weekend when our fans gave us words of encouragement. It is also what we’re learning through the outpour of support for our Kickstarter campaign. In a sea of cynics, we are connecting with people who truly care about quality and running a business responsibly.

What Bin and I never talk about (until now) are the internet trollz and taunting phone calls that we– yes, a boba shop– receive. And it’s usually from other Asian Americans! It’s amusing to us as Bin and I came from a world where the best businesses or brands are typically very polarizing. Usually, it’s a good sign when a brand is loved or hated. (Just make sure you are loved by enough people!) We can live with unwarranted criticism as it is a result of our positioning. We want to change the industry, so it will undoubtedly ruffle some feathers. We don’t mind the label of “hipster boba” if that means we’re the highest quality boba in the world!

Our real concern is when people call out specific members of staff in a public forum. This is in addition to the racial comments we read online or hear in person. To put it mildly, that is not cool. It’s been done several times and probably countless more if we had more time to track things down. It is cyberbullying and passive-aggressive. One of our core values is giving a damn and that means standing up for other small businesses who are exposed to these people.

As we have said since our GOOD magazine articles, we’re about changing perceptions and bridging cultures. To us, cyberbullying and trolling is almost as bad as blatant racism because it’s divisive without accountability. Yes, by writing this, we are antagonizing cyberbullies and internet trollz which isn’t exactly building bridges– but it comes from a spirit of love like a big internet noogie! Sadly, we all know these people.

At one point in my life, it was me. I was that guy, the person who would post a one-star review simply because the waiter gave me attitude. We write because we think, “Surely, I’m going to show them!” In reality, it doesn’t prove anything and it isn’t constructive at all. The owners, if they even care, will read the review and offer an apology and an offer to make it right. However, the issue, if valid, is usually something systemic, so the one review won’t change the business overnight. But the waiter was often my true target of contempt. It’s like I want him or her to get fired over spilled milk (ironically, that did happen one time). That was just mean-spirited and immature.

The reality is that my critiques were a myopic instrument of power. It was my way of feeling better about myself. It’s why people yell at customer service reps over the phone, even if the rep has nothing to do with the issue. We just want someone to vent at so we can feel better. As some of you know, my father is a proud bus driver for the great city of San Francisco. My mom, bless her soul, is a customer service rep at a telecom who deals with the crazy shenanigans from people all over the country. So yes, I do feel strongly about this topic!

The point of this is to thank our fans for the timely vote of confidence and to continue channeling our passion into our mission: bridging cultures to change the way people think about boba and tea. There are days when Bin and I feel as though the mission isn’t worth it. We hear the cynics. After all, what’s wrong with cheap snacks and drinks? Why can’t we just make cute food and leave it at that? Why do we have to be the ones that challenge the status quo and do the right thing

The reason we keep going is because change is inevitable and the end result (i.e. social change) is worth it. Through Boba Guys, we’ve met other great entrepreneurs who share the same desire to bridge cultures, many of whom encounter the same sentiment. We cannot stop because of internet trolls. If we want a better world– one with more understanding and compassion– then we need to #DoTheRightThing and change culture. 

We say to our fans, team, and entrepreneurs who face social adversity, keep ya head up!

“Keep ya head up, oooo child things are gonna get easier
Ooooo child things are gonna get brighter” - Tupac

~ Andrew

Bin Chen

This post has been a LONG, LONG time in coming. In lieu of today's Gizmodo post, we think now is the best time to talk about our milk… and shake things up a bit. *cheesy rimshot*

A lot of people ask us why we made the decision to use Straus organic milk in all of our milk teas. We hear it a lot:

“Milk is all the same, right?”

“People across the US drink it every day and they’re fine. Why do you guys have to use organic milk? That’s soooo bourgy." 

"I’m fine with non-dairy creamer. Tons of people drink it every morning. We all can’t be wrong.”

Well, we tried to address it on our FAQ page, but it’s hidden in the deep recesses of the website. It’s just easier to highlight it every so often like today.

Before we get started, we wanted to set the context. We don’t try to be “bourgy, "hipster,” or “artisan” because it’s trendy or different. We do it because it represents values that we can be proud of. We’re deathly afraid of being labeled as self-important, so it’s a very fine line to straddle. For example, our brown sugar for our housemade syrup base is not organic mostly because it’s so crazy expensive– we try to be as prudent as possible and always ask if the customer finds value in whatever it is we do.

So back to milk. We’ve all heard “Milk does a body good.” We believe organic milk does a body better. And Straus Family Creamery is the leader in this space. That is why many of the best ice cream shops in the Bay Area like Bi-Rite or Humphry Slocombe use Straus

Once upon a time after business school, I worked in CPG (consumer packaged goods). I was put on a food brand in my first assignment and worked in the salad dressing market with brilliant food scientists. Let’s just say I learned A LOT about the processed food and dairy industry. While I am forever grateful that I got world-class training, I always felt weird about promoting something I had issues with consuming myself.

It is there that I developed the strong conviction that some, though not all, foods are much better when there are high-quality standards (e.g. organic, no rBST). Fortunately, my business partner is very passionate about this, too.

Although there are debates on whether or not organic products are truly better, most agree on two things: organic milk does not have rBST and are processed with savory production conditions. Also, we think the cows are happier, too. Doesn’t that count for anything?!

The real question is if all of this is worth the price. To us, it is. 

So that’s why our milk brings all the boys to the yard. Damn right, it’s better than yours.

Cheers,

Andrew

#FightThePowder
#DoTheRightThing

#fightthepowder #dotherightthing

Bin Chen

Boba Guys and Gals,

It’s Day 15, which means we are officially half way through our Kickstarter Campaign!

The overwhelming support to our Kickstarter campaign really touched our hearts. When we saw that we hit 33% of our goal within three days, Bin and I did a little “Happy” dance. If we reach our goal, we just might have to bust out a whole special number!? =)

Today, we wanted to answer one FAQ: why did we make our Kickstarter about #FightthePowder and #DotheRightThing?

For those who don’t know, it is a reference to an awesome movie called Do the Right Thing by Spike Lee. It’s a provocative movie that everyone should see as its themes are still relevant 25 years later. We had to re-watch it a couple times before we decided to integrate it across our campaign. We knew that reintroducing the phrase “Fight the Powder” in today’s vernacular could potential ignite unnecessary controversy across the internetz. That’s why we want to explain ourselves now.

Do the Right Thing spoke to Bin and I because it shares the same passion for social change. It’s a funny, yet authentic portrayal of race relations in the 1980s. I was only eight years old when the movie came out, but I remember watching it on VHS at a neighbor’s house. While some of the dialogue was way over my head, I remember it affected me deeply— it was one of the first times I saw Asians in mainstream cinema. The Asian immigrant store owners in the movie reminded me of my family’s situation—we ran one of the only Chinese restaurants in our little township of Woodbridge, New Jersey.

I am the first to admit that I am very fortunate when it comes to racial discrimination. I can only recall a few select instances in my childhood where I was on the receiving end of explicit racial prejudice. Most of the time, I heard silly one-off comments like “Hey Jackie Chan!” or “What are you going to do, Bruce Lee?” Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee were/are still heroes to young Asian Americans, so if that’s what people wanted to call me, so be it. There are a lot worse things to be called than a Drunken Master tyke.

Two of my best friends from childhood were Italian and Hungarian. It is through them that I experienced true racial and ethnic discrimination. They endured the full gamut of racial epithets and I was often present to empathize with them. Even as a kid, I found it unfair to insult a person based on the color of one’s hair, family possessions, or even what they brought in for lunch—these are things out of my friends’ control. Although it wasn’t exactly a conscious decision, I developed an acute awareness of social and economic division.

Fast forward twenty years later, I meet Bin and find out we share a similar point of view. This time it’s flipped. In a city where 1/3 of the population is Asian American, we can easily fall prey to reverse discrimination. We hear tinges of it when people comment about the diversity of our staff (i.e. 70% of our staff are not of Asian descent). We have the best, most loyal employees in the business—it is disappointing when people think they cannot make a good drink simply because of the way they look. As we wrote two years ago, Boba Guys is our way of sharing our culture with the world. It’s not about being Asian American, Taiwanese, or Chinese. It’s about bridging cultures.

One of the biggest hurdles in bridging culture is helping people understand the boba scene. In our opinion, the boba and tea industry is a bit clandestine and insular. We felt this when we started Boba Guys and met with potential suppliers. One supplier laughed at our face when we said that the future of boba lies with transparency and quality ingredients. He (the CEO) proceeded to say we were being naïve and foolish. We still think about the conversation to this day. The CEO happens to run one of the biggest industry conglomerates today.

The massive menus and endless combinations of flavors also make the whole experience very intimidating for people who are new to boba. It’s hard to know who to trust and what to drink, especially if everything looks like a nondescript, colorful powder. That’s why we care so much about transparency. If people can see how we make things or the ingredients we use, it makes the experience more palatable.

We’re not here to stick it to the industry, but we are very intentional about our campaign. In order to change perceptions, we have to disrupt things a bit. We use the traditional Taiwanese brown sugar syrup method, but we also use Straus organic milk. We sell world-famous Sunny Hills Pineapple Cakes from Taiwan, but we also make Hong Kong toast with a buttercream topping instead of the typical can of condensed milk. The disruption may be uncomfortable for some, but better for the whole. By bridging cultures, you get crazy new creations like horchata boba or milk tea with chia seeds. And more importantly, you start breaking down barriers and just maybe, we all start to love each other a little more.

So we hope that explains why we chose to use the hashtags. #FightThePowder is our call to challenge the status quo and #DotheRightThing. Thank you for joining us in this mission!

Cheers,

Andrew

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