Chris Johnson is an accomplished entrepreneur founding Rapid Products and the Johnson Group Inc.
With his roots firmly grounded in Sacramento, Chris grew up with a diverse duo of family members. His mother was a small-business owner consulting for major corporations and his father was a senior special agent for the Federal Government.
At the age of 16, Chris started down the entrepreneurial road and started a teen dance club and held the first event at Dante’s where he hosted 400 local high school students.
While in college, Chris developed the idea for the Rapid Ramen Cooker when he accidently cooked the perfect bowl of Ramen in the Microwave. Chris dedicated his time and efforts to creating the ideal ramen cooker; it was his questions that connected him to the right people. He knew what he could do himself and creating a prototype was not one of them.
His attorney actually referred him to a group of students at Chico State and they produced the first working prototype. Later, he landed a deal with Walmart and was highlighted on KCRA News. Eventually, this attracted enough demand where he was able to successfully pitch it on Shark Tank where he successfully negotiated an offer from Mark Cuban.
Rapid Ramen (now called Rapid Brands) has grown into a full line of microwave cookware with sales at estimated $100 M.
Fear vs. Faith
His advice to entrepreneurs is to know the difference between fear and faith. Fear is that you’ll be a failure. Faith is that you’ll be a success. What do they have in common? Neither has occurred so Chris encourages entrepreneurs to embrace faith and to not allow fear to dominate your life. Don’t even think about fear.
If you would like to hear more nuggets of entrepreneurial wisdom from Chris, you can view his entire interview with Startup Grind Sacramento here.
