Meet Eric Hoang | Co-Founder, YATE Yerba Mate

We had the good fortune of connecting with Eric Hoang and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Eric, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
YATE Yerba Mate is my second company and second in beverage/consumer packaged goods (CPG). If you know anything about the grind that is the beverage industry, then you might think I’m a masochist for doing it twice. Honestly I really just love the category. It’s fun, exciting, and has the potential for a very large exit.

But these reasons weren’t exactly why I started my own business in the first place. I was raised in LA by my parents who had immigrated from Vietnam after the war. Growing up around other immigrants, I experienced, what I believed to be at the time, very unconventional paths to success. The most successful people I met weren’t investment bankers, doctors, or lawyers. They were small business owners, working for themselves and owning all sorts of businesses, from parking lots, liquor stores, to car dealerships. This struck a chord in me at a very early age and is probably where my entrepreneurial itch came from.

Fast forward many years later, I’m in Corporate America and said itch was not getting scratched. While working, I had many business ideas, but never had the courage to take the plunge. Later I was sent on an expat assignment to Shanghai where I would lead a public company’s strategy team in China, and after a couple years away from home, I thought to myself, “How am I going to make my time here really worthwhile?” Surprise – the answer was not to stay at a corporate job.

I woke up one day realizing that I had a lot of life ahead of me to try new things, learn and make mistakes, and that I could always go back to the comforts of a W2 paycheck. At the height of the White Claw phenomenon, I quit my job, and founded ZEYA, China’s first hard seltzer. While we had some success, China went into extreme COVID restrictions which severely impacted the business, and ultimately we didn’t have the traction we needed to sustain. We wound up the business and I returned home to LA. There were no shortage of learnings and mistakes, but it was through that venture that I met my Co-Founders, Mike Ferrari and Galen Perry, and eventually came up with the idea for YATE Yerba Mate.

Mike and Galen (both from the Northeast) were also working abroad in Shanghai. Mike went to China straight out of college on a Fulbright Scholarship to study Mandarin, and after mastering the language, he stayed in China to work in management consulting helping consumer and retail companies, and then transitioned to a job at AB InBev (Anheuser-Busch)’s Shanghai office. Galen came to China much later, but was working as a management consulting for the Economist and lo-and-behold, AB InBev was one of his clients. Despite having a population of 26M+, Shanghai’s expat community is pretty small, which led to Mike, Galen, and I meeting while partying, going out to bars and nightclubs, and quickly we became close friends. Once we found out that we had relevant backgrounds and complimentary skillsets, we started working on ZEYA together, leading to many long nights, staying up late working and/or going out.

In order to try to stay awake, we’d look for energy options, only to find Red Bull and Thai Red Bull (remember we’re in China still), neither of which we enjoyed. This was especially true in nightclubs, where caffeine options were quite limited. So while working on ZEYA, we started searching for energy alternatives that were actually enjoyable to drink. We stumbled upon a German bar that was brewing fresh sparkling yerba mate on tap (yes, in Shanghai of all places), and immediately became hooked on its taste and clean energy. We started drinking it before and while going out and realized we might be onto something. It gave us the boost we needed without the crash and jitters, and it tasted great! We also learned that in nightlife cultures in Germany and the Netherlands, people were already drinking yerba mate in nightclubs. We were really excited to learn that this cultural niche had already existed, and we were set on bringing it to the US. Enter YATE Yerba Mate.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
Please tell us more about your business. We’d love to hear what sets you apart from others, what you are most proud of or excited about.

YATE (pronounced ya-tay) is a sparkling yerba mate celebrating the Social Energy™ that makes us move and brings us together. Created for those who work hard and play harder, YATE is a naturally invigorating twist on tea and your go-to for good vibes without the crash or jitters.

Unlike other ready-to-drink yerba mates, YATE stands out from the crowd with a commitment to using only 100% yerba mate, no added caffeine, and organic and natural ingredients. Our mixologist-crafted flavors deliver plant-powered benefits with an uncompromising experience in taste and quality. We are proud to be founded in LA and to be making a name for ourselves as the #1 yerba mate for social occasions.

How did you get to where you are today business-wise. Was it easy? If not, how did you overcome the challenges? What are the lessons you’ve learned along the way.

Even though we’ve only been around since October 2022, we’ve had more than our fair share of costly mistakes. But it’s the learnings from these mistakes that guide us, and therefore we’re adamant on testing ideas and learning as fast as we can. One of the most important lessons I’ve learned along the way is the importance of learning how to do things yourself as an entrepreneur. It can be enticing to think that a so-called expert can quickly insert themselves into your business and help you do something, but you really have no way of assessing whether they’re successful if you haven’t tried to do some of it yourself. This is especially true at the early stages. The takeaway – there are no short cuts or silver bullets.

Also as a group of Co-Founders, we’re also never shy to ask for advice or to get feedback, whether it be from customers, suppliers, or advisors. Like I mentioned earlier, beverage is never easy, but we love what we’re doing and have high conviction that there’s a need for what we’re doing.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Great question! I love to host out-of-towners and show them my version of LA.

Firstly I’ll start with the negative – compared to other cities, I think LA is a pretty terrible tourist city. The sprawling geography, distance between places, lack of public transportation, and traffic all contribute to an unfavorable experience where you spend a lot of time in your car. Sure, there’s lots of tourist attractions and landmarks, but I don’t think a lot of these is what makes LA cool anyways.

What makes LA cool to me is the incredible weather, everyday life in the city, the insane melting pot of cultures, and the music scene. Because of the sprawl, I don’t know anywhere else in the world where there are such concentrated cultural enclaves. My LA tour always starts with food and drinks in these areas. There would definitely be a taco tour on the east side, which might include Mariscos Jalisco, Taco Zone, El Ruso, or Los Dorados, and a night out in K Town with lots of beer and galbijjim. Can’t miss Thai Town and Little Armenia either. We’d then go burn off the calories on a hike at Griffith Park or at an underground rave in DTLA.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I’d like to dedicate this shoutout to my mother, Danielle Tran, who immigrated here from Vietnam after the Vietnam war with nothing but the clothes on her back. Still she was able to provide a loving, fulfilling, and supportive life for me and my brother.

Website: www.drinkyate.com

Instagram: drink.yate