South Asian Strong
Building the platform that puts South Asian products on every mainstream shelf. Starting with chai.
A masala chai made to help you focus — built from inside the culture, not borrowed from a trend
Real chai spices, plus ingredients that help you focus and stay steady. We're selling straight to customers first, and only adding new sales channels once we've proven it works. Right now we're looking for a manufacturing partner to help us make the first batch.
The opportunity
Nobody's made this for us yet
Coffee alternatives that boost focus are already big business — mushroom coffee, matcha, adaptogen lattes. People buy them again and again. But none of them were made with us in mind.
Chai is already a daily habit for hundreds of millions of people, and the ingredients we're adding — shilajit, velvet bean — aren't new or trendy here. They've been part of the culture for generations. We're not borrowing from a trend. This is ours.
Why it works commercially
We already have people who'll buy it
We don't need to spend money on ads to find our first customers. We already have an audience, an online store, and a founder people trust.
This is how the biggest brands in this space did it: sell direct to customers first, add social selling like TikTok Shop once people prove they come back, then Amazon, then stores. We're following the same steps — just faster, because we already have the audience.
The product
Ready-to-mix masala chai latte powder
MSRP
$29.99A tub lasts 20 servings — about $1.50 a cup. Subscribers may pay less.
Format and pack
Just add hot water. Comes with a scoop, sealed for freshness. 20 servings per tub.
What's inside
Shilajit, cordyceps, and velvet bean — ingredients with a long history in this culture — plus L-theanine and caffeine at a 2:1 ratio, for steady energy without the jitters.
Serving and net weight
About 14–22 grams a scoop, and 276–433 grams per tub, depending on the final recipe.
Shelf life and dietary status
Lasts 18–24 months unopened. Has milk in it, so it's not vegan. We're aiming to make it gluten-free.
Formula status
The recipe isn't locked yet — we're still working with manufacturers to finalize it.
What we can say about it: We'll say it can help with focus, steady energy, and feeling calm but alert. We won't say it treats any disease or make big promises about hormones — because that's not true, and that's not the brand we're building.
Channel roadmap
Four stages. Three gates.
We sell direct to our own customers first. We only open a new sales channel once the last one proves itself.
DTC subscription
We sell straight to our own audience first, at full price. This tells us what's really working — how many people subscribe, how many stick around after 3 months, what makes people buy. We fix any problems now, before strangers on Amazon start leaving reviews.
TikTok Shop
Once we know our numbers work, we open TikTok Shop. Supplements are already the biggest health category there, and we're already good at making this kind of video. This channel brings in new subscribers — it's not where we plan to make most of our money.
Amazon
By this point, people are searching for us on Amazon anyway, so we go there to catch that demand. We register our brand name from day one to protect it. Amazon has its own costs, so we treat it as its own line of business.
Specialty retail
South Asian grocery stores and health food stores are the natural home for this. But stores need real paperwork — safety certifications, allergen labeling, batch tracking. We build that from day one, so we're ready when the time comes.
The bigger picture
Chai is first, not the whole idea
We're not building a chai company. We're building the platform that brings South Asian products to every mainstream shelf — and chai is simply the right product to start with, because it's already a daily habit for millions of people.
We won't guess what comes next. Our community will tell us. Every order, every reorder, and every conversation with our audience shows us what they want — and the same playbook that launches this chai launches whatever they ask for next. Same audience. Same channels. Same gates.
Funds
Capital staged the same way the channels are
We're raising money in steps too — matched to the plan.
Pays for the first 500 tubs and testing.
Pays for the bigger batch, plus opening TikTok Shop and Amazon.
Once we've proven people stick around, this funds bigger batches and getting into stores.
Fundamentals
What we're building toward
These are the numbers any investor, buyer, or long-term owner would want to see. We're not there yet — but here's exactly how we get there.
Gross margin
70%+At today's cost and price, we're already around 73%. That should hold or improve as we grow.
Customer value vs. cost to get them
3:1Right now we estimate closer to 2:1. We get there by getting more people to subscribe and reorder — which is why we hold off on ad spend until this number improves.
Revenue growth
30%+ YoYCan't measure this until we've launched. We'll know by month 3.
Profit margin
10–20%+We reach this once the bigger batch covers our fixed costs. We start tracking it with the 2,500-unit run.
Growth and expansion runway
Multi-channel, mappedThe four-stage roadmap covers this product — and the platform covers what comes after. New products launch to the same audience, through the same channels, chosen by what the community actually asks for.
Team you'd trust
Proven in-categoryOur founder already has years of credibility here, plus a real store and a real audience. This isn't a future goal — it's already true.
Two of these six are already true today. The other four have a clear plan and a checkpoint attached. We're not asking you to trust a guess — we're asking you to back a plan.
What we need from a partner
Honest reads are worth more than easy yeses
We don't just want a price quote. We want a partner who tells us early on what won't work — how well it dissolves, how the shilajit tastes, how it clumps, how accurate the scoop is.
Specifically: Proper safety certification from day one · a small first batch of 500 tubs, with us covering the extra cost of going small · your advice on which sweetener to use · honest timelines · test results for every batch, especially checking the shilajit for heavy metals.
In one paragraph
The plan is simple on purpose
This category is proven, but nobody's made it for South Asians yet — and we're the ones with the audience, the content, and the store already built. Our plan: a small first batch, six months of real data on who comes back, and we only grow once we know it's working.
Start with a conversation
Let's start with a quick call — what you can make, how much, and your honest first take on the recipe. Cesar Bustamante, Product Development.