Hidden Gems: Meet Nancy Ho of Crispy Ho

Today we’d like to introduce you to Nancy Ho.

Hi Nancy, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Crispy Ho was founded in Venice Beach in 2024, but my culinary journey started in my grandmother’s kitchen when I was five years old.

I’m a first-generation Vietnamese American, and because my parents worked constantly, my grandmother largely raised me. She grew up in the countryside of Vietnam and brought that way of life with her to America. Everything she made was from scratch. She would shred fresh coconut by hand to make coconut milk, grow her own herbs, and even butcher and defeather her own chickens. As a kid, I genuinely thought that was just how everyone cooked.

That upbringing shaped the way I see food. To me, food is not just nourishment—it’s memory, culture, tradition, and love passed down between generations. That philosophy became the foundation of Crispy Ho: the idea that a single spoonful can carry history and tell a story.

Fast forward to 2022, I started hosting Lunar New Year dinners for friends and family, which quickly became an annual tradition. As part of those gatherings, I began making my own chili crunch to give away as gifts. I never intended to sell it. But friends kept asking for more, and eventually started telling me, “You need to bottle and sell this so we can stop feeling guilty asking for free jars.” And with the encouragement of family and friends, Crispy Ho was officially born in 2024.

What’s happened since has honestly been surreal. We entered our first retail store in 2025 without spending a single dollar on advertising—everything grew purely through word of mouth. Just three months after launching in specialty retail, we received an unsolicited email from Erewhon after someone internally had tried the product and recommended it to their team. They asked us to send samples and submit a vendor application.

We were told the typical review process could take up to six months. Two weeks after submitting our application, Erewhon called and said they wanted to launch Crispy Ho in every store as quickly as possible.

Since hitting shelves nine months ago, Crispy Ho has remained the #1 selling product in both the condiment and hot sauce categories for the past seven and a half consecutive months and it’s been wild ride ever since!

What makes Crispy Ho special?

It all goes back to my grandma. Growing up with her shaped my palate, my standards, and the way I think about food. She cooked with patience and intention, and because of that, I developed a very specific understanding of what flavor and texture should feel like.

When I started making Crispy Ho, I couldn’t find a chili crisp that delivered the kind of crunch and depth of flavor I was looking for. A lot of products on the market felt oily, overly processed, or one-dimensional. I’m also very conscious about nutrition and ingredients, so I was frustrated by how many brands relied on highly processed seed oils and additives.

I wanted to create something that felt cleaner, more intentional, and more satisfying to eat. That’s why we use non-GMO avocado oil instead of the highly processed oils commonly used in this category. But beyond the ingredients, the texture was everything to me.

Our signature is the crunch—real crunch that you can actually hear. I spent countless hours frying garlic and shallots, adjusting temperatures and timing, and obsessing over small details until the texture felt perfect. A lot of brands talk about crunch, but for me, it had to genuinely deliver that sensory experience.

At the end of the day, I think what makes Crispy Ho special is that every part of it comes from obsession: obsession with flavor, texture, quality, and creating something that feels both deeply comforting and exciting at the same time.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Building Crispy Ho has been incredibly rewarding, but it definitely hasn’t been easy. It’s been built inside a very full life.

I’m a dentist and a mother of two young children. When Crispy Ho officially launched into retail stores, my youngest was only 10 months old. My husband is also a full-time lawyer, so for us, time has always been the biggest challenge. This began as a passion project that lived in the margins of our lives—after work, after bedtime, late at night, and early in the morning before the rest of the world was awake.

There were plenty of moments where I questioned whether I could really balance everything. Building a business while raising small children and maintaining a career can feel emotionally and physically exhausting. But I cared so deeply about what I was creating that I kept pushing forward.

We also came into this industry with no food or retail background. Everything was completely new to us, from manufacturing, distribution, operations, packaging, to retail. We had to learn every part of the business in real time, often through trial and error.

One of the biggest challenges was turning a homemade recipe into a product that could scale without losing what made it special in the first place. Getting the same flavor and signature crunch consistently at production scale took countless rounds of testing and refinement. And even as costs increased, I never wanted to compromise on ingredient quality. Using clean ingredients like non-GMO avocado oil was important to me because it reflected the standards I grew up with.

When things began accelerating, especially after Erewhon discovered us, it was both exciting and overwhelming. Suddenly we had to scale quickly while protecting the quality and authenticity that got us there in the first place.

Through all of it, my husband’s support has meant everything. Even with his own demanding career, he believed in me and this vision from the beginning.

At the end of the day, Crispy Ho is much more than a product to me. It represents love, resilience, sacrifice, family, and the belief that something meaningful can grow even from the busiest seasons of life. In many ways, it really does feel like my third child.

As you know, we’re big fans of Crispy Ho. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Crispy Ho isn’t just a condiment to me, it’s something that has become part of people’s everyday rituals and routines. One of the most rewarding parts of building this brand has been hearing from customers who tell us they now keep it permanently on their kitchen table, bring it to restaurants, or can’t eat breakfast without it. We’ve had people tell us it’s become part of their Sunday morning family breakfasts or the one thing they reach for no matter what they’re cooking. One customer even wrote, “If I could, I’d shoot it through my veins,” which still makes me laugh every time I think about it. But underneath the humor is something incredibly meaningful. People truly love and connect with the product.

What’s been especially surreal is that almost all of our growth has happened organically. We haven’t relied on traditional advertising or paid marketing. Every opportunity has come from people discovering the product naturally and wanting to share it.

Some of our favorite collaborations and partnerships happened that way. Petit Grain Boulangerie in Santa Monica, which has always been one of my favorite bakeries in Los Angeles, featured Crispy Ho on a squash pastry, which felt like such a full-circle moment for me as someone who genuinely admired their founder long before she knew who I was. We’ve also been featured in sandwiches at our favorite stores, and collaborated with Normal Ice Cream on a special flavor with their James Beard–nominated founder. None of those relationships came from outreach or paid partnerships. They came from chefs and founders trying the product and wanting to create with it.

I think what sets Crispy Ho apart is the level of intention behind every detail. From using non-GMO avocado oil instead of heavily processed seed oils, to creating a higher bits-to-oil ratio so every spoonful feels substantial, to obsessing over the texture and crunch—every decision was deliberate. I didn’t want to create another chili crisp that blended into the category. I wanted to create the version I personally wished existed, something cleaner, more flavorful, more textured, and more thoughtfully made.

More than anything, I’m proud that we’ve grown without compromising who we are. The brand still feels deeply personal to me. Seeing Crispy Ho become part of people’s homes, meals, and traditions is the part that means the most. That human connection is what makes all of this feel so special.

Before we let you go, we’ve got to ask if you have any advice for those who are just starting out?
Don’t underestimate how much you’re capable of figuring out along the way. I started Crispy Ho with no background in the food industry while working full-time as a dentist and raising two young children. There were many moments where I felt completely in over my head. But I’ve learned that you don’t need to have everything figured out before you begin. You learn by staying consistent, being willing to adapt, and simply taking the next step forward.

My real foundation was never business experience. It was grit.

My parents fled Vietnam after the war when the communists took over the country and had to rebuild their lives from nothing in America. Their first jobs paid $3.25 an hour, and they often worked three jobs at a time, seven days a week, just to create opportunities for our family. I spent most weekends and holidays with my grandparents while my parents worked nonstop. Watching their resilience and sacrifice shaped the way I approach challenges today. Whenever things feel difficult, I remind myself that I come from people who endured far harder things with far fewer resources.

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is to focus relentlessly on the product itself. In today’s world, there’s so much emphasis on marketing, growth hacks, and virality. But if people genuinely love what you create, that becomes your greatest advantage. Everything that’s happened with Crispy Ho happened because people connected with the product in a real way.

I also wish I understood earlier that you don’t need to force growth or chase every opportunity. Sometimes the strongest thing you can do is stay patient and protect your vision. If your product is truly good and you stay authentic to what you believe in, the right opportunities tend to come naturally.

Most importantly, stay anchored to your values. I built Crispy Ho around my own standards, my upbringing, and the kind of product I personally wished existed, not around trends or what I thought the market wanted from me. That has always been my north star, especially during moments of uncertainty, which every founder experiences.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://crispyho.com/
• Instagram: @crispyho_official