When Chen Yun-Tso first whispered the words easy seafood cooking to himself, he still wore a government ID badge and collected a paycheck that most parents would proudly frame. But the Taiwanese 30-something, tired of spreadsheets and ceiling-low ambitions, walked away from civil-service security and set out to reshape his life and how busy households, especially fellow older millennials, put fish on the table.
Leaving a government job opened a path to easy seafood cooking
Chen grew up in a modest farming village where “dinner” often meant whatever you could whip up before mom and dad returned from the factory. Self-taught with a wok and a spirit of trial and error (think YouTube before YouTube), he discovered independence and a lifelong romance with food.
From rural pantry to patent holder
Majoring in aquaculture at college felt as random as finding a rare Pokémon in tall grass. Yet part-time work on fish farms turned cluelessness into expertise, and a later stint at Taiwan’s Council of Agriculture let him prototype a new piece of farming equipment — earning a patent and confirming a lesson we all learned from Kickstarter: A decent idea plus relentless follow-through can level up anyone’s game.
A year in the States confirmed a market craving for convenience
Worried that his English sounded like a glitchy dial-up modem, Chen cashed out his savings for a one-year study break in the U.S. There, he saw shrimp deveined to perfection, salmon portioned like LEGO bricks, and teens cooking dinner faster than you could stream an episode of Friends. The insight was simple: Give time-starved people pre-trimmed, high-quality seafood, and easy seafood cooking would go mainstream.
A family crisis turned urgency into resolve
Back home, Chen buried his startup dream in overtime hours at a machinery firm — until an accident left his father temporarily paralysed. Standing in a hospital hallway, he felt the stopwatch of life hit “resume.” The next morning, he quit, pocketed what little savings remained, and vowed to chase his moonshot even if it meant eating instant noodles for a year.
Sharing top-quality fish with friends became a startup mission
Renting an eight-ping (260-sq-ft) storefront — one ping became his bedroom — Chen and two partners sanded, painted, and hacked together an office worthy of a MythBusters episode. They sourced export-grade Taiwanese seafood, usually bound for Japan or the U.S., and flash-packed it into meal-kit-style bundles, promising customers a restaurant-level dish in the time it took to beat the final boss in Mario Kart.
The first Lunar New Year hot pot bundle generated over 100 orders overnight. Running on two hours’ sleep and flu meds, the trio packed boxes until sunrise — exhausted, broke, but blissfully confident they were feeding both stomachs and dreams.
Listening to that inner 8-bit soundtrack
Chen’s story reminds any millennial who watched VHS give way to streaming that when you can’t stop thinking about an idea — a podcast, a side hustle, or easy seafood cooking — you owe it to your younger self to hit start. You may sacrifice weekends, Netflix binges, and the illusion of “stability,” but the XP you earn can’t be bought.
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