Steve Yeng, his wife, co-founder with Britney, Skrewball Peanut Butter Whiskey, Cambodia was born in the wake of the massacre of Cambodia, which was left More than 1.7 million people Dead at the hands of Khmer Roose. When Steve was one year old, he came to know about polio. His right leg was permanently paralyzed, and his parents sought across the border in Thailand.
“We entered a refugee camp, essentially a jail where we could not get out,” Steve says entrepreneur“We were standing in queues for food and water. Six years later, which is a long time for those types of camps, we were sponsored by a couple to (transferred) to California, who wanted to do a random work of kindness.”
The family settled in San Diego. Steve’s parents got a job at a local donut shop away from their primary school, where he first met Britney. The pair started dating high school and also chased after different routes. He obtained his master’s chemistry and attended the law school. He jumped into the restaurant business.
Image Credit: Walking Eagle Photography. Steve and Britney Yeng.
Steve’s parents went to buy a donut shop on which they worked, and they followed their entrepreneurship in foot. He and his brother Scott opened OB Noodle House in 2008 and a holding company in 2016.
“We realized that we had actually built two different worlds,” where (Steve) was going home at 4:30 am, “says Brittany, and I was going to work at 4:30 am. And we were expecting our first daughter. ,
“We used that Dalit mindset (and said), ‘Let’s do it.” ,
The couples were with the idea of a new project that would allow for more time together: starting a peanut butter whiskey brand. Peanut butter, which Steve and his family often received in the US during their early days, had a favorite taste. He was experimenting with adding it to all kinds of things: feathers, noodles, fried rice – then Jameson.
Yeng tampered with Peanut butter whiskey recipe to make it stable, which ultimately meant landing on one that was not creamy, but was mixable and good for cocktails. At that time they despite different lives, “Peanut butter is the glue that actually brought us together,” Steve says. The pair seized their “Ab or never moment” and started a business.
Image Credit: Courtesy of Scruball Peanut Butter Whiskey
Yeng’s peanut butter whiskey’s Ocean Beach, San Diego had a solid fan base in his small community, but faced more doubts from investors and research and development companies. At one point, an industry advisor completely discouraged the enterprise, saying that they looked like a good family, who should not spend all the savings of their lives on a non-viable business idea.
“They all laughed,” Steve misses. “Everyone was unhappy. Nobody believed in us. They saw us as a novel, not an incident. (But) Doubt fuel our drive. We were successful earlier; we used that Dalit mindset (and said), ‘Let’s do.”
“It finally clicked with us that the product himself was an outsider,” Britney says. “It was not just us who were outsider. It is peanut butter whiskey. First people hear it, they like, ‘I don’t know.” So that the product and the original story jointly (completely) surround the brand. ,
“We wanted to do it ourselves and took the black sheep into the group.”
After already honored the brand recipe through tests and error, Yengs also bowed to his “underadog” position for his branding. Skrewball’s label has a large black sheep surrounded by small white sheep. “We look at our superpower (being a black sheep),” Britney explains. “We wanted to do it ourselves and took the black sheep into the group.” The founders also noted a double meaning in the name “scruball”: excluding the odd, but also expecting your “crew”.
Skrewball officially launched in San Diego in 2018 – and the bootstraped business was a massive hit. The brand remained in San Diego only that year as it could not keep pace with the production required to expand yet. Independent liquor stores such as Keg N Bottle, Newport Farms and Crest Wine were important for the early success of scruball, saying the founders. So San Diego was the bar and restaurant community, which “immediately brought scruball in and behaved it like its brand.”
Image Credit: Courtesy of Scruball Peanut Butter Whiskey
Nevertheless, some Naysayers considered the vital victory in the pan as a flash, the founder. But when the brand was launched in California on a large scale, it repeated its sold success. Finally, Scrawball achieved national distribution in all 50 states in January 2020. “We were the fastest in one million cases for any brand more than $ 20 in history,” Steve says. “Nobody expected it.”
“In 2020, the only brand Tito and Henesi were the only brand to grow faster than us in dollars sales.”
Of course, like most growing businesses, scruball had to struggle with some serious challenges on the way. Amidst the expansion of the brand, the longest government shutdown in American history is the process of obtaining a proper label to a stop. In 2020, the business faced major production and lack of bottle which almost insolvency. Many times the founder “came home for electricity because we could not pay the bill.”
However, Yeng consider many obstacles that are catalysts for the final permanent success of scrubol, stating that they helped prepare them for years of epidemic. Skrewball created a surplus of late bottles and dry goods in 2019, and this allowed the company to expand with demand and demand due to global deficiency.
Killing on the road when many major suppliers stayed at home, there was another important step that promoted the business. “I lived on the road – safely – and individually promoted scruball, opening bars and restaurants,” Steve says. “It brought great awareness to scruball at a time when some other brands were present. In 2020, only the brands that grew faster than us in the dollar sales, they the Tito and Henesi.”
The couple insisted that it is not luck that scruball has been brought to this distance, but the brand customers have been refused to listen to and to commit commitment.
“We still taste,” Britney says. “We were just in a market. To ensure that you are still relevant to your customer, provide them value and respond to their needs (important).
Image Credit: Courtesy of Scruball Peanut Butter Whiskey
“You must be able to adapt. You must adapt to changes and remove those obstacles.”
Now, Skrewball is a multimilian-dollar, globally recognized Spirits brand. By March 2023, it felt the right time to find a strategic partner for the business. “My daughters were getting older, and I didn’t want to miss it,” Steve says. The founders decided to partner with the Paynode record, which was full of confidence in values that reflected their own. Wine and Spirits Company Obtaining majority stake in skrewballYeng also enjoyed the moment of a full-cycle: his brand started with peanut butter in Jameson’s shots, one of the souls of the Paynode record.
Yeng is ready to continuously grow the brand – and continues to win on any doubt.
“(We are still) are proving those skepticists wrong,” Steve says. “(When people listen to it for the first time, they like), ‘I don’t know.” But then they try it, their face lights, and they introduce it to another friend or family member who usually has the same reaction – and this is one “never old.”
Both Steve and Scruball defeated the obstacles they will ever reach at this point. “When I caught polio, there is not much that is expected from you, especially in Cambodia,” Steve says. “When I was in that refugee camp, I remember (surprise) Why? I was a healthy baby; I just needed a shot, and none of it would have happened. (But what it seems) An obstacle, turning back, may be a blessing. You should be able to customize. Comforting changes and removing those obstacles. ,
