Small Business Success: UmamiPapi Founder’s Daily Routine

When Ethan Yong, founder of UmamiPapi crispy chilli oil, was five years old, his mum, Laura, cooked him a spicy noodle dish that was too hot for his tastebuds to handle. She warned him that if he didn’t learn to appreciate the heat, he’d miss out on a lot of great flavour. “Somehow my five-year-old brain registered the idea of future FOMO,” says Ethan. He forced himself to keep eating chilli, and soon it became a flavour he craved.

In fact, he became such a fan of spice that during the 2020 lockdowns, he began experimenting with creating his own crispy chilli oil in his kitchen. Soon he started selling samples to friends and family. One day a stranger reached out over Instagram, asking to buy a jar and before long, Ethan had to move production out of his home and into a commercial kitchen to keep up with demand. “I remember the day my brother turned to me and said, ‘Hey, man. I think you’re onto a thing that could be really big.’ Somehow getting that belief from someone so close to me made me think, ‘Okay. Yes. This could be cool.’”

Today, UmamiPapi chilli oil ships all over the world and is sold in more than 800 retailers and Ethan heads up a team of eight, plus several contractors. Here’s a peek at his daily routine at work and at home as a successful condiment entrepreneur.

Ethan’s Daily Routine

Preparing for the Day

“I wake up at 6.15 every morning. I’ll drink some water, meditate for 10 minutes, get dressed and ride my bike to the gym. I’ll do some weightlifting, ride back, take a shower and have a coffee. That sets me up for the day. I’m at my performance prime in the early morning in terms of my mental capacity. Exercise and eating well are pretty important to me; I try not to eat anything fried or fatty or drink alcohol during the week. But on the weekends I don’t care. I love going to restaurants. I love having a bottle of wine at dinner.”

Making the Most of Mornings

Ethan Yong using a tape dispenser to tape up a box of UmamiPapi crispy chilli oil for shipping.

“On Mondays we set our production schedule. I’ll have a meeting with my operations manager to discuss who needs to do what and which big orders need to be dispatched this week. The sorts of questions I’ll ask are: ‘Are we prepared?’, ‘Do we have enough?’, ‘Do we have to change anything to our pre-planning going forward?’

“This is also the time I’ll check my emails. They might be from my brand manager or head of sales talking about a deal we might be working on. I might also meet with finance to discuss forecasts or our digital team to talk about something we’re doing to improve the website or to check on the performance of our Facebook ads. I am always dipping my toes into every area of the business to make sure the whole operation is running smoothly.”

Team-Focused Afternoons

A close-up of Ethan Yong’s hands spooning some UmamiPapi crispy chilli oil over a bowl of noodles.

“Filming content usually happens on a designated shoot day with my digital team and production and fulfilment staff, as I have taken a step back from filming in-house content since things are becoming very busy. When we’re on a shoot day, we might be interviewing or filming different staff members to get them involved with their own ‘a day in the life’ segments for social media.

“We also like to do team tastings on the weirdest foods to pair UmamiPapi chilli oil with – things like bananas and Easter eggs. Sometimes we might be filming a recipe video or a lifestyle shot of an aesthetic meal paired with UmamiPapi chilli oil and the team will get to eat the dishes. We like everyone to be involved and for all teams to talk to each other so they don’t just feel like they’re slaving away, bubbling a jar of chilli oil.”

Clocking Off for the Evening

“I usually try to clock off by 5pm or 6pm at the latest. If there is a lot more work to be done after hours, I like to go home first to take a shower and prepare dinner so that it acts as a bit of a break before jumping into work again. Otherwise, after dinner, around 7pm, I’ll have some fruit or dark chocolate and unwind by watching YouTube. Once it’s 9pm, I put away all my technology and aim to get in bed by 9.30pm to fall asleep before 10pm.”

Tips for Small Business Success

Four jars of original and extra spicy UmamiPapi crispy chilli oil sitting on a red shelf.

Make Mistakes and Keep Learning

“If you grow too quickly, you won’t be equipped with the experience or the skill set to help you get to that next level. When I started, I made all sorts of mistakes. When I sold into my first store, I didn’t realise labels needed proper nutritional information. But you can make those mistakes at the beginning. As you get bigger, the mistakes come with more risks. When you’re new to an industry, put in the hard yards of Googling, researching, speaking to people. You don’t have a boss: you are the boss. So it’s up to you to continue to learn or you won’t move forward.”

Pay Close Attention to Your Numbers

“I look at my [sales] numbers every day and have a meeting every two weeks with my financial consultant, who helps with budgeting, forecasts, financial modelling and expenses. Because at the end of the day if you’re not making money or you’re running into financial trouble then you can’t be successful.”

Treat Your Employees How You Would Want to Be Treated

“I only had a year working in finance before I left to run UmamiPapi full-time and because of the lockdowns we weren’t even in the office for most of it. Because I had no managerial experience it was sometimes difficult for me to handle other personalities and my own stress levels. I’ve matured a lot over the past few years. Today, I spend a lot of time reflecting over that and speaking to mentors and reading books. I try to think about what makes work pleasant and about how people want to be treated.”

Celebrate Wins With the Team

“As a team, we like to celebrate our wins. Let’s say we land a big deal, like if we get the product into more stores. I’ll take the team out for a nice banquet dinner somewhere. There’s a nice Christmas bonus at the end of the year too, based on each member’s performance. I think it’s good for employee retention and I hope it helps to make UmamiPapi a place where people want to come into work each day.”

Essentials for Running the Office

A series of images showing items Ethan Yong uses to run UmamiPapi including a Square card reader, Epson printer and HP laptop, and Sharpies.

“We use an Epson printer and we use our Dymo LabelWriter every day to print stickers with people’s addresses. We use clipboards, paper, pens and Sharpies. We have whiteboards in different spots around the business because we need to write things like ‘X amount of onion’, ‘X amount of garlic’. Sometimes it’s actually more convenient to write things down on paper than bring out the laptop in production. We also use a tablet as a point of sale, with Square, when customers walk by the kitchen and want to buy products on site.”

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