HOT STUFF

In December 1978, David Tran, then 33 years old, left his home in Vietnam with 100 ounces of gold. Worth $20,000 at the time, or about $90,000 in today's terms, the precious metal was stashed in cans of condensed milk to evade the attention of Vietnam's Communist authorities. Tran traveled by freighter to Hong Kong, where he spent eight months at a refugee camp, then moved to Boston for six months before settling in Los Angeles in January 1980.
Once in Southern California, he sold a chunk of the gold and bought a 2,500-square-foot building in L.A's Chinatown. He set up his business, Huy Fong-named after the freighter he took-to make a hot sauce he called Sriracha, after a recipe originally from Thailand. Huy Fong grossed just $2,300 in its first two months.
More than four decades later, Sriracha has been on Survivor, on the International Space Station and on dining tables worldwide. Its distinctive bottles, with their rooster logo and green squeeze cap, are in nearly one in ten U.S. kitchens, according to market research firm NPD Group. It ranks third in the $1.5 billion American hot sauce market behind Tabasco, which has been owned by the McIlhenny family since 1868, and Frank's RedHot, part of publicly traded McCormick.
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Sriracha has become a behemoth without spending a dim...