[Honey's Anime Interview] Bokksu Founder Danny Taing (NYCC 2018)

What is Bokksu?

Our mission is to deliver curated authentic Japanese gourmet experiences worldwide. At its core, it’s a subscription box for authentic premium snacks that you can only find in Japan. So we actually partnered with (some) over 100-year-old artisanal snack makers throughout Japan. We’re the only company that actually does this, so we partner with them and source their product, curate them into thematic boxes such as summer festival or citrus refresh. These are examples of past themes or boxes. And we have them packed directly in Japan and ship it worldwide. We actually ship to over 70 countries around the world now.

Wow, that’s great! So what kind of boxes do you have? Like do you have a bigger box or smaller box?

Yeah! We have two sizes; the original size, which we call the Classic Bokksu, is $39 with free shipping worldwide. We have a small one called Tasting Bokksu and that’s about half the amount of products, similar currations. That’s $25 with free shipping worldwide.

Ok, so how does the subscription work? Do you pay every three months, six months, monthly?

Yeah, we have all of those options. We started off as a one product, one size, one monthly thing and now we have one 3-6-12 months. Every prepay gets a little bit more cheap but the vast majority of our subscribers actually do a three month plan. They really believe in us and want to sample all three months. It’s been really wonderful.

How long has Bokksu been around?

I started the company at the end of 2015 and launched in May 2016, pretty fast turn around. When I first launched, half of the subscribers were my friends [laughs] just to support me. We’ve really grown a lot since then and we’ve actually shipped almost 2 million snacks worldwide.

Wow, so you’ve been really successful with Bokksu!

It’s been good, yeah, I think so. [laughs]

Why do you call it “Bokksu”? Is it a pun on box?

Actually, yes! I actually came up with the logo and name. This [points at the logo] in Japanese it means “hakko” which is the traditional word for box. And “Bokksu” in Japanese is also the English imported loan word in katakana. So it’s kinda this modern interpretation of traditional Japan. We’re kind of bridging the Western world with the traditional Japan, make it more accessible.

That sounds perfect, I love it!