Trademark bully': Momofuku turns up heat on others selling 'chili crunch'

Trademark bully': Momofuku turns up heat on others selling 'chili crunch'
theguardian.com

    I've stayed silent for too long. And I'm not going to stay silent anymore.

    A few weeks ago we got sued by Momofuku. It was one of the most painful experiences of my life. After getting IBS, I decided to leave my six-figure job in Silicon Valley, to venture into the Biotech and Food-as-Medicine world in hopes of finding a solution. I gave up financial stability, relationships, and sanity to get Redbloom off the ground. I still remember the day Redbloom was 3 days away from dying, and on the day I was supposed to shut down the company, we went viral. Hundreds of orders flooded over the holidays and I had to juggle between pissed customers and fundraising. This was winter.. funds were closed, everyone told me we weren't going to close the round until march. We closed the round 1/15. From Thanksgiving all the way to Lunar New Year. I didnt' see my family, I didn't see my friends. I slept on the factory floor. I made my ops team work 15 hours a day to make the facility expansion deadlines. Redbloom has grown beyond my control to the point it became impossible to find a co-founder - I was a single parent. That legal letter from Momofuku felt like a knife being held to my kid's throat. The worst part about it was we couldn't even speak up about it - were we the only ones? do we have a target on our backs before we can even walk? Everyone close to me was like "what did you do?"

    The funny thing is - we don't even compete against Momofuku. People with IBS can't eat Momofuku. I'm here trying to create medicine to reduce gut sensitivity, but instead of making a pressed pill, our medicine form factor is chili oil (for you science nerds, we microencapsulate capsaicin with oleic acid to provide a cushion for the TRPV1 receptors in your gut so prevent autoimmunity in the short run, allowing the capsaicin to reduce visceral hypersensitivity in the long run). Yet, David Chang still found a way to eat away from our R&D budget required for clinical studies...

    Today, we found out that they are suing multiple asian food founders for various things. This has gone beyond a simple lawsuit. A hole is being torn in the AAPI community right now. AAPI founders are supposed to support each other, not fight each other over centuries of culture that spans beyond our generation. This is no longer about me, it's no longer about Redbloom. It's bigger than that now. The articulation of our asian heritage in the western world is at stake. And we will stay silent no longer.

    Homiah - Michelle Tew
    MìLà - Jennifer Liao, Caleb Wang
    And all the other AAPI founders who we experiencing this. We are here to stand by you! We are here to speak up. and We are here to support the AAPI community.