Tariffs Are Threatening To End Vite.

When I saw the new tariff numbers, I felt a cold, crushing dread that made it hard to breathe.

My hands became stiff, clammy, and trembled as I ran the calculations again and again, hoping I'd made a mistake. I hadn't.

We were now suddenly, somehow, staring down a potential complete collapse.

The vtuber projects we poured our heart and soul into, working passionate, sleepless nights over now threatened to bankrupt us. But that wasn’t alone. Every project that hadn’t arrived stateside yet threatened to take us down. Shadowbringer, VKS, KFP, and every other collaborative project we’ve done lately, once a beacon of hope and creativity, now bore down on us, flipping into devastating liabilities overnight.

I couldn’t really sleep last night. Truth be told, I haven’t been able to sleep ever since the announcement. I’d been staring at the dark ceiling above, desperately hoping a solution would come to me.

We’re actually one of the rare companies who actually started a manufacturing plant in the USA. I built the Vite Ramen facility up with my own hands, tearing down drywall, wiring our custom dehydrator, mastering every position on the line myself before handing it over to staff. I’m proud to say I’m still the second fastest on the line, only outpaced by our incredible production overwatch, Ana.

We’ve done everything “right.” We make things here. We provide good jobs. We source as much as possible from American suppliers. We stick to people over profits. And yet, we’re still staring down stacks and stacks of price increases across the board, as the tariffs rip through the entire global supply chain that our suppliers depend on.

And not only that, but those partner projects we were so proud of, so excited to work on... The current estimated tariffs hang over our heads like a guillotine waiting to come down.

$114,595.

Over a hundred thousand dollars we had no way of planning for. Over a hundred thousand dollars we can’t absorb, can’t wish away, can’t ignore.

But it doesn’t feel right to charge everyone more. No one asked for this, and no one should have to pay this much more suddenly. But we also can’t pay for it ourselves suddenly without going bankrupt and out of business.

So what options do we even have, then?

1) Don’t let people get their items unless they pay the additional tariff fees
2) Pay for all the tariffs ourselves and go bankrupt
3) Don’t bring in the items for potentially years until the tariffs are hopefully lifted
4) Raise prices 50%(yes i know it’s not an exact 1:1, I also haven’t crunched the exact numbers yet)

Every one of these options feels wrong, or contradicts our core values.

I know some people will ask why these were outsourced, so I want to talk about the concept of comparative advantages, something I’ve seen scarce few people talk about. Comparative advantage is simple-- some people just do things better than others.

If I’m a Michelin Star chef who can chop twenty onions in five minutes without looking, and there’s a mechanic who can change out car brakes in five minutes, then it’d make sense for me to chop his onions for him in exchange for him changing out my car brakes.

Some people are just better at certain things than others, even on a global scale! That can be due to environment; we can’t grow coffee or vanilla well in the USA, for instance, or a lack of expertise; there’s only a few microchip manufacturers in the world that can produce certain qualities of microchips, lack of labor; Luxembourg would simply not have enough people to run massive factories, and any number of other restrictions.

Because of this concept, many things we wanted to make simply didn’t have manufacturing bases in the USA. In fact, the very reason why we started our own ramen facility with Vite is because there wasn’t anyone in the USA who could do what we wanted to do!

As a direct result of being made in the USA, using high quality ingredients, and placing people over profit, our ramen has to have a price that many people think are too high. Even the kind of custom goods we make elsewhere, because of our low runs and custom builds, can have pricing that seems high.

I wish I could manufacture everything ourselves, have a knife forge, make clothing, standees, whatever else, but I’m already managing a food factory. I’m already writing all these emails, social media, scripts, editing videos, R&D, operations, financials, whatever else that I do.

I've spent sleepless nights trying to find some other option, some other way that doesn’t contradict what we’ve always done. We’re not going to sell to an investor and put profit over people. We can’t get loans with this kind of economic uncertainty on the horizon.

I’ve always kind of prided myself on being able to solve the impossible. Thought that it was my job, my duty to figure out how to pivot out of dead ends, find the angles everyone else had missed, be clever enough to come up with something out of nothing. After all, that’s how Vite started, wasn’t it? That’s how we survived the pandemic, wasn’t it?

That’s how we got through a hundred other crises and catastrophes throughout the years... right?

But this time... I can’t. There’s been too many sleepless nights. Too much thinking, and all I can feel is the bleak, heavy weight of despair.

I’m out of miracles.

With heaviness in my heart, I’m turning to you: our community, our supporters over these years. This isn’t something I’d wanted to do. It feels like admitting defeat, but I can’t bear the thought of the alternative, and seeing all of this crumbling down to nothing in front of us.

Instead of raising prices, instead of charging people more, instead of delaying items for year, or any of the other terrible options, I’d like to begin a voluntary crowdfunding effort instead, as well as auction off various memorabilia that have been seen in our videos.

If you've ever enjoyed what we've created, if you believe in what we stand for, now is when your support would mean everything. I don’t know exactly how we’re going to do this, and I don’t know exactly what the rewards will be. Certificates? Personalized videos? One on one cooking lessons? I’ll sharpen your knives? T-shirts and pins? More ramen pre-orders?

I’m not entirely sure, so I want to hear from you. What rewards would you like to see? Do you think this is the right approach, or is there something I’ve missed?

Please come join our Discord and tell me your thoughts. I want to hear from you before we try something like this. Your thoughts, your ideas, your honest feedback all matter deeply to me.

I’m not going to stop fighting. I’m not going to stop thinking of ways to make this all work. But meanwhile... I’m tired. I’m spent. The exhaustion is seeping out of my very bones.

And this time... this time, I think I’d like to ask for some help.

Here's the link to donate and support.

-Tim, CEO/Founder Vite Ramen