If you’ve spent some time in a kitchen, which Sashee Chandran definitely has, then you know that there are many combinations of ingredients that don’t work. In other words, there are many ways to ruin a recipe, and relatively few ways in which they succeed. And yet, there are many different successful recipes, and they all seem to have some logic to them. 

Entrepreneurs are similar in that you can look at their qualities and experiences and think: no wonder this person is crushing it. And yet, there are many different combinations of qualities that seem to work. Some are scientists trying to commercialize their expertise, and others are derivatives traders with a love for learning and helping. 

Sashee Chandran’s combination dates back to before she was born. Her parents were both immigrants who came to the U.S. to escape hardship and danger. Seeking a better life, each one navigated their way to UCLA. In anticipation of a Back to the Future plotline, they met at a school dance and eventually married and had two children. 

Despite finishing near the top of his MBA class from the Anderson school, her father had to start on the sales floor of a department store and work his way up. Her mom was an accountant at J. Paul Getty. But, neither one of them was content with their day jobs. Both cultivated side hustles. Her father dabbled in real estate, eventually buying income property, and her mother sold Capodimonte at swap meets, where Sashee experienced selling and negotiation first hand. 

In the fifth grade, Sashee was retailing jewelry to classmates. In middle school, it was CDs. There was always something on the side. 

Her parents’ vigilant search for opportunities uncovered a hidden gem of a home in Malibu, which enabled her to attend Malibu High School. Later, a layoff would result in them having to sell the home and downsize to a modest apartment. It was humbling. She learned to adapt and not to get too attached to things or plans. Life has ups and downs, and you have to be able to cope with them. She also learned to save and have a fallback plan. 

At UC Irvine, she studied Economics and Management, and she spent a year at the London School of Economics. After graduating she worked at a market research firm, but the financial crisis cut that short. So, she printed business cards and marketed herself as a one-woman market research firm to small businesses. I think it takes some chutzpah as a 22-year-old to pitch to businesses that you can help them understand their customers better, but she landed 3-4 clients and was making ends meet for a year and a half. 

That's when she got noticed by a former colleague who had moved on to eBay. She got an interview and an offer to relocate to the Bay Area to join eBay’s leadership training program. She spent six months in different departments within Marketing. Five years later, she had a thriving career at eBay, and probably would have stayed for the long haul if it wasn’t for that indefatigable need to always be hustling.

Who doesn’t love cookies? Nobody. And, Cold Stone is a fun treat. Sashee’s side hustle was to apply the concept of Cold Stone, with its infinite combination of mix-ins, to the domain of cookies. She had a professional portable convection oven, and she was traveling on weekends to events to set up a booth and make custom cookies. 

But - here’s the kicker - even her side hustle had a side hustle. Sashee inherited a love and appreciation for all things related to tea. But she wondered why tea had to be such a chore, especially in our instant gratification world. There should be a capsule that you can drop into hot water - like a bath bomb - and let it dissolve into the perfect cup of tea. But, she searched and searched, and nothing like that existed. She bought an industrial grinder and experimented with recipes, finally developing a recipe she liked. 

Then one day, as always happens in stories like these, she was packing her oven to head out to an event where it was going to be 98 degrees, and she knew that cookies wouldn’t sell. But, she had 50-60 “tea bombs” in ziplock bags, so she took them along. She hand-made a sign that read “Tea Drops,” and they all sold quickly. Customers told her what a great concept it was. You didn’t need to be a market research expert to listen to what the market was telling her… but it didn’t hurt. 

It’s six years later, and she just got her first patent. Early on, a SCORE mentor encouraged her to file for a utility patent, so she Googled how to do it and wrote her own. She is now a long way from when she started making tea drops in her kitchen and packaging them in her garage. She’s a long way from going door-to-door and landing 500 accounts one at a time. Now she’s got about a dozen employees and 2,500 retail clients, but most of her business is direct-to-consumer online, where the Tea Drops website has a sizable product line based on a variety of recipes. 

Sashee is comfortable experimenting with different recipes, and that quality is part of her personal recipe, along with a big dollop of drive and hustle, a love for tea, a willingness to start at the bottom and do the labor required to make things happen. It doesn’t hurt to have a lot of experience listening to and analyzing customers, either.