--- feed: "DANIEL_ON_SLOPE" codex_section: "S09" source: VideoTranscript title: "360MEN MUGSHOTS and COFFEE - Trong Nguyen" conv_id: "video-jDTAMwTr35U-20180528" share_url: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDTAMwTr35U" created: "2018-05-28" message_count: 1 category: - "Scotomaville Journey" - "Mugshots & Coffee" summary: "In Tempe, Arizona, at the Grand Plaza Resort, Daniel Comp meets Trong Nguyen (who goes by 'Win'), inventor of Sugar 2.0—a 50/50 sugar-and-fiber blend designed to reduce sugar intake while maintaining taste and familiarity. Win shares his David-and-Goliath battle against the entrenched sugar industry, his innate entrepreneurial drive, and how he deliberately involves his four children in every aspect of the business—from product design and packaging to sales—so they learn self-reliance, earning power, and the freedom that comes from ownership. The conversation highlights perseverance through strategic (non-disruptive) innovation, transparent communication with kids about sacrifices, and turning family challenges into shared growth opportunities." keypoints: - "Entrepreneurship is largely innate and difficult to teach; problem-solving from childhood often separates those wired for business from those who pursue traditional careers." - "Sugar 2.0 is a practical next-version solution (half sugar, half fiber) that addresses personal/family sugar addiction while offering a gentler path for consumers and potentially the sugar industry itself, rather than outright disruption." - "Strategic perseverance beats loud disruption: avoid becoming an immediate target by framing innovation as a 'saving grace' that preserves existing infrastructure while cutting sugar use dramatically." - "Involving children directly in real business operations (design, production, packaging, sales) builds entrepreneurial skills, teaches earning versus entitlement, and creates lasting memories and life lessons about freedom and responsibility." - "Transparent, open-door communication with kids—including honest discussion of family sacrifices during business travel—builds trust and helps them understand the trade-offs inherent in pursuing a meaningful mission." tags: - "trong-nguyen" - "mugshots-and-coffee" - "sugar-2-0" - "entrepreneurship" - "family-business" - "perseverance" - "david-and-goliath" - "parenting" monomyth_stage: "06 - Tests, Allies, Enemies" gameboard_position: "Camp 3: Tests, Allies, Enemies" truth_score: 87 entropy_score: "Low" tone: sentiment: "Earnest" emotions: - "Passionate" - "Reflective" - "Hopeful" sycophancy_level: "None" notes: "Warm, conversational interview at a resort conference setting; Win speaks thoughtfully and strategically; Daniel provides appreciative narration and probing questions; strong emphasis on family involvement and long-term vision." related_events: ["video-DSUAfCaN9Zk-20180524", "video-yziL1-Dyq-o-20180522"] syndication_status: arnie: false chris: false redmond: false clint: false pilot: false ma5_inheritance: "None" pre_silicon: true voice_print: false codex_candidate: false phase: "Scotomaville Road Journey - Mugshots & Coffee: Allies in Entrepreneurship & Family Legacy" enriched_date: "2026-04-13" --- ![[jDTAMwTr35U_maxres.jpg]] ### Original YouTube Description In this episode of MUGSHOTS & COFFEE Daniel Comp introduces Trong Nguyen. Trong is the inventor of a sugar replacement and sugar reduction product which is half sugar and half fiber called Sugar 2.0. which can be found in Walmart and online. Trong is tackling an ancient industry with a 'David and Goliath' story. He's also managing to be an entrepreneurial father involving his kids in all aspects of the business to learn the benefits and values of self-employment and personal achievement. Meet Trong, learn a little of his story and carry on the conversation at http://360MEN.net --- ### Cleaned Transcript **Daniel:** So today is a pretty exciting one. We're in Tempe, Arizona at the Grand Plaza Resort. I'm gonna introduce you to a young man named Trong who's got a really special story and an amazing enterprise that he is launching—almost David and Goliath story. [Music] **Daniel:** Tell me how to pronounce—cuz I'll butcher your last name. **Trong Nguyen (Win):** I know. I'll just go by Win. I just... the right way with you, but waiting is very difficult. It's not obviously... and if you just call it Win now, it's so... Win is probably the closest. With us it's a drum win, but of course now does it make sense to the actual spelling, right? M-G-U Y-E-N. And how do you get Win out of Nguyen? So... and so some good of these people would kind of pronounce it with just a Win. So I just go by Win and just to keep it simple. **Daniel:** As an entrepreneur I put you near the top because even in the introduction I refer to you as like in a David and Goliath battle, right? So tell us a little bit about Sugar 2.0, how that came about, and then we're gonna talk about what that journey really is like. **Win:** Okay. Well, I think entrepreneurship is... most of it is built in. I think a lot of people are born with entrepreneurship. It's actually quite hard to teach someone entrepreneurship because I mean I realized that coming from a family of eight and there's most of us—or most of my siblings—they went on to having careers, right? Just jobs—doctors or, you know, teachers and scientists and whatnot, right? And so some people talk about being in business or running a business but it never happened, right? And so for me it's always been... I mean for the longest time since I was a kid I've always been really a problem-solver. Things that... anything I mean... things I just... so many things alone. A lot of people tell me that... you know, my ex-wife says, "Just leave the darn thing alone. Write your food. Alright, this is just to seed your food, okay? Just eat your food. Why do you... you know, like do what hits critique every meal at a restaurant? What is pretty, you know? Oh, they can fix this, they can rearrange this but make it nicer color and whatever," right? Yeah. Now even having four kids, right? I want to teach them entrepreneurship. I mean I think that's a great skill to have. I mean it's always... but that it's not—it's a very difficult skill to teach. They either have it or they don't, and you kind of mold them, right? I mean of the four kids, two of them have very entrepreneurial skills. I teach them how to... you know, kids are always asking for things, right? Asking for toys and stuff. So I give them opportunity. I don't give them things that I always buy it for them, but I give them opportunities to earn those things. I would give them things to sell online on eBay. I mean nowadays it's... you know, it's so easy. There's a modern lemonade stand, you know, where you used to go down... **Daniel:** Kids would be so eliminated. That's jaw, right? How did you run across the idea for the sugar? First off, it's Sugar 2.0, so I think, "Oh well, that means it's the new one," right? Or on there anyone that the next version, right? It's a play on technology and it's a next version. So version 1.0—1.0 regular old sugar is gonna go out, and so we definitely need a second version. And the second version is, you know, it still needs to have the same familiarity as, you know, very similar to the first one in order for consumers to be comfortable and use it. And so although, you know, it provokes something that's new and different, they have a lot of the same product that customers or consumers already know, right? Regular cane sugar, interesting table sugar, and fiber. So now people are starting to learn more and more about fiber and understand how important fiber is to health. And so Sugar 2.0—it's really in that basic—it comes out to just be half sugar and half fiber. So this is for people to be able to reduce their sugar intake, right? Yeah, boy, diabetes too and all those kinds of things. You're addressing a pretty enormous problem, right? **Win:** Right. This is... it started out as just really trying to address my own family's addiction to sugar. So from there, you know, it started to grow, right? My family started to use it and my friends started to ask for it. So it started from just really trying to address my own family's sugar consumption and it kind of blew up. And then, you know, of course as an entrepreneur you're looking at this like, "Wow, they're asking for this. This is great." And you know, and the more I dove into sugar and the whole problem and crisis with the sugar, I see how big this problem is. And just to know that, you know, that I have a product that can impact the whole world—I mean this is really amazing. **Daniel:** My experience charting a path to success includes the long journey, right? Yes, he's very, very weary now. I only can imagine in a David-and-Goliath—you're the little guy up against the entire world of sugar manufacturers and 100-200 years of history. And I have it, okay? Talk to us about perseverance. How in the world do you hang in there? I think you going up against a battle... I mean I'm a very strategic... and it goes back to those personalities, right? And understanding that I'm very strategic on how I get to my final role. I tell my kids, "I saw my... I always do all right. I want okay. I mean I get it right away but I will get what I want because it's strategies." And you need to create a strategy that does not necessarily disrupt, okay? People throw that word out all the time about disruption, okay? Guess what? I mean disruption causes too much, you know—you shake the boat too much and that's going to flip and someone's going to survive. And you know if you're... and you happen to be that great, but you know disruption is not necessarily a great thing, right? And so when I will it certainly makes you a target, yes. Yes, and you don't want to be the underdog and the target and draw attention. You're right. Not... I mean, you know, you want the attention to a certain point, right? You want to... it's always like you always get your enemy's attention or as the competitors' attention first, and people that are... will, you know, are so quick to try to take you down. And so being in this industry and knowing how powerful the sugar industry can be, you have to keep that in mind. And so for me it's not about attacking sugar, right? And not... it's not attacking sugar. And so we don't have to—sugar's been around for thousands of years and people's been consuming sugar. It's how we use it, right? How we consume sugar. And so that we definitely want to address and so forth. I hope that the sugar industry looks at this problem not as competition but as maybe their saving grace, okay? Maybe this would be being able to save the sugar company. On top of that, I mean sugar companies that sugar farms are converting to ethanol, okay? So that is big right now. I mean imagine if you can cut sugar by 90%, okay? You're using 90 percent less sugar. That same farm, okay? That same piece of land—what can you use that 90 percent? That mean that that 90 percent—guess what—that same piece of land can produce sweeteners, sugar, and energy. How the world... **Daniel:** You deal with the complexities attending, you know, helping your children grow. Hope you don't understand your responsibilities solving your mission. All the guys listening are like, "I'm failing at this." What are your insights on... **Win:** I actually include my kids in most of my operations actually. So from production to packaging to... I mean all of these things—even already down to the design component of the bag curtain, for example. I mean my daughter Anna picking out the purple color and so those kind of things. They remember—whether or not they're, you know, five years older or 10, 15 years old—they remember these things. And so my kids help me on the weekends, for example. They do help that come and they help and they pack, they put things in boxes. And again these things, you know, which there's also a reward system as well. I mean of course you teach them how to earn money and to buy their own things. And a lot of it—it's not so much about things, it's more about life, right? About freedom. Freedom to choose. And can end today, for example, going out to Arizona. I bring along my daughters. They wanted to come along. They didn't want me to drive on myself, first of all. But you know, we turn into like a little micro vacation, right? I mean we came out here. I mean they're at the pool now. So but at least they had a chance to sit in in the conference and they listened to see, you know, what happened at a conference and what would I do, right? And so these are—to me—these are really important things. But I remind them all the time that they are making sacrifices. So my communication with my kids—it would always have an open door and very, very transparent. And I tell them everything about the business, where it's going. And again I always remind them of their sacrifices and they are... they are sacrificing every single day, every single time that I have to fly out to do on a business trip—for you know, five days, 15-20 days at a time when I have to go to Asia, for example. **Daniel:** In my getting to know Trong I really appreciate his perseverance and his sensitivity to raising his kids to be all that they're capable of being and giving them an opportunity to experience entrepreneurship firsthand—not just the challenges of it but the rewards inherent in it. If you'd like to learn more from Tron, if you'd like to ask him some questions, go to 360men.net and subscribe to this channel. You're gonna meet a bunch more guys. --- **CODEX ENTRY** **Date:** 2018-05-28 **File:** 360MEN MUGSHOTS and COFFEE - Trong Nguyen.md **Monomyth Stage:** 06 - Tests, Allies, Enemies **Gameboard Position:** Camp 3: Tests, Allies, Enemies **MA5 Domain:** None **Summary:** Daniel meets inventor-entrepreneur Trong Nguyen (“Win”) in Tempe, who created Sugar 2.0 (50% sugar + 50% fiber) as a practical solution to family sugar addiction that grew into a world-impacting product available at Walmart. Win navigates the sugar industry as a strategic David, involves his children deeply in operations to instill entrepreneurial values, and maintains transparent communication about sacrifices. **Key Insight:** True entrepreneurship is often innate; strategic, non-disruptive innovation combined with deliberate family inclusion turns business challenges into shared legacy-building opportunities that teach earning, freedom, and resilience. **Narrative Significance:** Win represents another grounded ally in the Scotomaville journey—modeling perseverance, fatherhood through action, and problem-solving mindset that reinforces the Initium emphasis on self-reliance, conscious parenting, and designing futures beyond default systems. --- **INITIUM.**