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How I Built This with Guy Raz
How I Built This with Guy Raz

Advice Line with Angie & Dan Bastian of Angie's BOOMCHICKAPOP

April 02, 2026 • 49m

Summary

⏱️ 9 min read

Overview

Guy Raz hosts the Advice Line on How I Built This Lab with Angie and Dan Bastian, co-founders of Angie's Boom Chicka Pop, who sold their multi-million dollar popcorn business. They offer advice to three entrepreneurs facing growth challenges: Michelle from Nana Jo's Granola seeking investment without compromising values, Gloria from Elida tackling stigma in the bladder health device market, and Eric from Maple Roo navigating competition in sports nutrition. The episode explores bootstrapping versus raising capital, overcoming social stigma, authentic brand scaling, and the personal toll of entrepreneurship.

The Founders' Journey and Lessons on Work-Life Balance

Angie and Dan Bastian reflect on their journey building Boom Chicka Pop from a parking lot side hustle to a multi-million dollar acquisition. They candidly discuss the physical and emotional toll of working 20-hour days and emphasize that if they could start over, they would prioritize health and relationships more. Both have since moved on from the brand to pursue nonprofit work and mentoring, learning to balance their entrepreneurial drive with personal wellbeing.

  • Angie is no longer with Boom Chicka Pop and now chairs the board of Prospera Foods, a cassava flour company supporting Nicaraguan farmers
  • Dan focuses on mentoring food industry startups and setting their own schedule after years of intense work
  • The couple worked 20-hour days which damaged them physically and emotionally, taking a long time to recover
  • They emphasize building a business is a slow, steady grind, not a get-rich-quick scheme
" I think one of the things that Ange and I have talked about was, you know, we were the 20-hour-a-day workers, which was not healthy. It's just how I knew how to operate, just the pedal down, go, go, go, make sure we are doing everything we can. "
" Building a business is really hard. It's very, very, very hard. This is not a get-rich-quick scheme show. This is a slow, steady, grind kind of show. "
" We could have done a few small tweaks like Dan was talking about, like just have a dinner together without the phone on the table and just turn off the phone. But we just didn't feel we could turn off the phone. "

Michelle's Dilemma: Raising Capital While Preserving Values

Michelle Pusateri from Nana Jo's Granola faces a critical inflection point after 15 years of bootstrapping her $2.2 million organic granola business in San Francisco. She's considering outside investment to scale but worries about finding investors who align with her values around organic certification, regenerative practices, and fair wages. After three near-misses with investors who wanted to change her formula or take more equity at the last minute, she seeks guidance on finding the right partners.

  • Nana Jo's Granola has grown to $2.2 million in sales with 30% direct-to-consumer and 70% wholesale distribution, primarily on the West Coast
  • Michelle is a trained pastry chef who created the granola after discovering store-bought versions had 12 grams of sugar, while hers has only 3 grams
  • She self-manufactures everything in San Francisco's Dogpatch neighborhood, maintaining tight control over product quality
  • Previous investment discussions fell apart when investors wanted her to go conventional instead of organic or demanded more equity at signing
  • The Bastians suggest she focus on finding minority investors who won't control the company, similar to their 2011 deal with Sherbrooke Capital
" After bootstrapping for 15 years, we're definitely at an inflection point. And how do we decide whether outside capital accelerates our mission or compromises it? "
" You can't ever do this being certified organic. And I want to invest in you, but you have to go conventional. And I said, well, that's not my plan. "

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