Jonas Tempel and Bradley Roulier have a successful entrepreneurial track record in Denver.
In 2004, the duo co-founded online dance music store Beatport, ultimately selling it to SFX Entertainment for north of $50 million in 2012.
At that time, Tempel was whisked away to Los Angeles as the eighth employee of the fast-growing music company Beats by Dre. He was tasked with launching Beats Music, a service that would come to be known as Apple Music.
Tempel said that experience shaped his entrepreneurial future forever.
“It was an amazing experience. If you were ever going to go with 'Top Gun' for entrepreneurs, that was it,” he said.
Ultimately, Tempel left before Apple Music launched and found himself without a direction for his next venture. He said he was “dizzy” after the Beats experience and unsure of where to channel his energy, when Roulier popped in.
In a seemingly innocuous moment, the two were watching some Sunday football as Roulier grazed from a bowl of popcorn.
“Maybe we can make popcorn cool,” he wondered aloud.
From there, Tempel’s gears were turning. Over the next year, he pondered the question further and, by late 2017, was ready to dive in. Tempel and Roulier recruited a team of local technologists to work at the popcorn startup, including Chuck Lepley, one of the early employees at Boulder-based robotics startup Sphero.
In early 2018, Opopop was born.
The stealthy popcorn startup launched with a mission to create what Tempel called a “high-speed automation system” for the industry. While they’re still working on a variety of products behind the scenes, including that one, Opopop made its first public appearance this spring.
The company announced a $5 million Series A funding round in June that was led by Valor Siren Ventures and brought the company's pre-launch funding from seed and Series A rounds to $11.6 million.
Other notable investors include Peter Rahal, the founder of RXBAR and Litani Ventures, Grammy award-winning DJ and producer Tiësto, Academy Award-winning director Jimmy Chin, and Alex Bogusky's firm Batsh** Crazy Ventures.
In tandem with the announcement, Opopop is launching a microwave popcorn line called Flavor Wrapped Popcorn Kernels. As opposed to traditional popcorn, Opopop said each kernel is individually wrapped in flavor prior to popping.
The company’s popcorn comes in six flavors including Fancy Butter, Salted Umami and Vanilla Cake Pop. The Flavor Wrapped Popcorn Kernels became available direct-to-consumer on June 7, exclusively on the company’s website, and retail for $45 for three family-size bags. Each bag has six servings, according to the website.
Tempel admitted that Opopop never had intentions to sell bags of popcorn kernels. As they were demonstrating other products, investors kept asking for more popcorn. So, the team realized these kernels could be their introduction to the market.
“When the conversation started it was pretty controversial, we knew the business we wanted to be, but we couldn’t deny the quality of this product that we have,” he said. “This is the beginning of our product ambitions and it's certainly exciting to be at this point.”
As for future innovation in the popcorn category, Tempel was cryptic and said the company is still running at a relative level of stealth.
“The roadmap for us over the next 36 months is really busy, to say the least. We have two or three more launches this year of major product releases that follow on the heels of this and then it all ladders up to the bigger stuff next year,” he said.
And, while they seem to have hit the ground running with this funding and product launch, Tempel is pumping the brakes. He knows what it takes to build a successful business, but said he was unprepared for the realities of stepping into a new vertical.
“We were really naïve at the complexity of stepping into the food space,” he said, adding that his music experience holds little cache with food investors. “We just stepped out of this stuff and they don’t care at all about your background and your cute, little music business.”
Those interactions have inspired him and the team to dig deeper in building what they hope can be game-changing for the popcorn industry.
Currently, Opopop has 17 full-time employees and operates out of a warehouse in Englewood where they handle all production. The company has already shipped 1,500 orders of its first popcorn product and will remain direct-to-consumer through its website to build a loyal customer base, Tempel said.
With a high-profile list of investors and a new product launch, it would be easy for the Opopop team to daydream. But that’s not what the CEO has in mind.
“What have we accomplished? We haven’t accomplished anything yet. We’ve been good at fundraising, that means nothing,” Tempel said. “Now we have to be good at running a business.”
