THE YEAR 2020
SourBoys started in 2020 when I, Caleb (oompaville on YouTube) and my buddy Cole (Rifty on YouTube) decided to take a shot at the candy business. I wanted a unique product to offer folks instead of the usual boring merch. We soft-launched in March 2021 to incredible support from our audiences. The brand was alive. People genuinely loved what we were doing.
WHITE LABEL NIGHTMARE
The bad thing was we were just importing our candy from the EU like every other licorice strip brand out there. That approach only gets you so far. Flavors get stale. We had zero retail strategy. Our marketing was trash.
ACTUAL REAL NIGHTMARE
After some time, I realized we needed to take the next step: figure out how to make this stuff ourselves if we really wanted to stand out and take a massive risk. Cole and I parted ways at this point - no hard feelings, but he was the smart one. The dream/nightmare was just beginning.
If I'd known how brutal this journey would be, I can't say I would have started it. But 700,000 bags sold and a million-dollar scam later, I'm unbelievably grateful I stuck with it. As completely insane as it was.
We Got Scammed. Real bad.
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RISKING IT FOR A SINGLE POPEYE'S BISCUIT
In 2022, I scraped together money to buy candy-making equipment. The automation engineering firm we hired went a bit rogue halfway through production. My guess? The guy gambled our money on crypto. He started lying to us and massively violated our signed contract. -
SCAMMER LOVED CATS
Eventually, we made it to Georgia to get our equipment. Problem was, we had no clue how to set it up. Boilers? 480VAC step-up transformers? We were clueless.
The scammer - Jake Fullerton of Ball Ground, GA - kept moving the goalposts in classic con-artist fashion. "Need just 30k more, man." "I'm in the hospital, so the install is delayed." Delay after delay after delay. -
THIS IS AN ACTUAL PHOTO OF JAKE LOL
Finally, I convinced him to send his coworker Will down to help. Will was a lifesaver, and after a few days, he dropped the bombshell: Jake didn't actually build our equipment (which we knew at this point, we just needed legal verification lol). Jake just swapped out some boards and peeled off labels. Will's honesty was everything - it revealed Jake's true intentions. He lied. He tried to destroy our business. We didn't let it stop us though.
THE INDOMITABLE HUMAN SPIRIT
WE TRIED AND TRIED AND TRIED
Myself and my childhood friends, Forrest, Clint and Michael learned everything we needed to know. We installed everything ourselves, with Will's help after he realized HIS childhood friend was a real jerk. We built a full-scale candy manufacturing operation from the ground up.
Then we hit another wall - we didn't know how to actually make candy. So we bought textbooks and taught ourselves. Twenty thousand pounds of failed attempts later, we cracked the code on true licorice-style strips. Shelf life was solid, water activity was safe. We did it. We built a full-scale candy manufacturing operation from the ground up AND then learned how to MAKE CANDY!
Against every odd, childhood friends and a small family business figured it out. Oh yea, also my amazing wife Kristina Collins (Phelps) helped immensely.
We launched and exposed Jake the scammer in June 2023. It's been nothing but uphill since then. We've created more different candy flavors than any other candy company combined. We make the highest quality handmade sour candy with natural dyes and flavors - I guarantee it. And nobody has worked harder than us to do it the RIGHT way.
There are no middlemen. No investors. Just friends who believe in each other and absolutely refuse to quit.
Now in 2025, with 700,000 bags sold, nothing has changed. We're still refusing to take the easy route, and we're incredibly grateful for your support. We definitely gave it everything we had, but it would have been for nothing without all of you. Thank you guys for supporting SourBoys!
