Vite Ramen isn't my dream. This is my step into the future.
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My dream isn’t Vite Ramen.
But when I spent 35 hours coloring this to get closer to my dream, only to trash it and start over?
I could only feel like I was procrastinating.
Shouldn't you be doing something productive?
It was 5am by now, and I’d already spent way too long today doing this.
This IS work, technically. VKS is a cyberpunk cooking/knife project close to my heart, but...
Let me take a step back.
See, I've been running Vite for nine years. One of the most common questions I get asked is when I ever sleep, or how I’m not dead from exhaustion yet, because the last time we calculated, I do something like 22+ full time jobs.
I don’t really like the title CEO, and I was using it because it was funnier when the “CEO” did stupid things. I am, at heart, someone who wants to create. Someone who wants to write and tell stories.
Someone who wants to build things.
But Vite doesn’t have venture capital backing. We don’t have access to the millions of dollars in capital that other companies do.
We own our own factory, we produce in the USA, use high quality ingredients, and I fight to make the best conditions for our people, whether that’s in fully paid health care/dental/vision, mental health days, or whatever else we can do.
But that’s expensive. That means we can afford fewer staff, and I have to take on more jobs, build more skill myself, and inevitably, run out of time to do the things I want to do.
The only way I was allowed to create became through doing things that made money. If it doesn't pay for itself, I can't justify the time.
And so every decision runs through the same filter first. I check the numbers. I check them again. Does this make money?
It’s the bitter truth about what I need to do to run the company in the way I believe to be right.
But if Vite Ramen isn’t my dream... then what is? What is this illustration, and what is it all part of?
See, once upon a time, I had a choice.
I could try to make noodles, and be one of the twins who had complimentary degrees, leverage my Michelin Star kitchen experience, make something new and innovative...
Or I could try making knives, with no audience, no experience, no innovations.
Not that I had any experience with ramen and food factories either, to be fair.
But one made for the better story, one could inspire a Kickstarter, which ended up becoming the #1 edible food Kickstarter ever funded...
And the other dream... well, that one I stuffed away, and buried.
But one day, a certain cooking oni vtuber came knocking, one we’d been so excited to work with. And she asked...
“Could you make knives as merch?”
One day, I’ll tell that story more as well, because when we first came up with the idea... we were going to be happy if we sold 5 - 10 knives.
But the minimum quantity for those knives was 500.
By all means, this would’ve been a dumb decision. By all sane, reasonable business considerations, we never should’ve done it.
But I didn’t build my own factory with my own two hands, wire and rig a custom industrial dehydrator that nearly killed me more than once, and do all this without venture capital because it was a sane and safe business decision either.
But if Vite Ramen isn’t my dream... then what is? What is this illustration, and what is it all part of?
See, once upon a time, I had a choice.
I could try to make noodles, and be one of the twins who had complimentary degrees, leverage my Michelin Star kitchen experience, make something new and innovative...
Or I could try making knives, with no audience, no experience, no innovations.
Not that I had any experience with ramen and food factories either, to be fair.
But one made for the better story, one could inspire a Kickstarter, which ended up becoming the #1 edible food Kickstarter ever funded...
And the other dream... well, that one I stuffed away, and buried.
But one day, a certain cooking oni vtuber came knocking, one we’d been so excited to work with. And she asked...
“Could you make knives as merch?”
One day, I’ll tell that story more as well, because when we first came up with the idea... we were going to be happy if we sold 5 - 10 knives.
But the minimum quantity for those knives was 500.
By all means, this would’ve been a dumb decision. By all sane, reasonable business considerations, we never should’ve done it.
But I didn’t build my own factory with my own two hands, wire and rig a custom industrial dehydrator that nearly killed me more than once, and do all this without venture capital because it was a sane and safe business decision either.
And I really, really wanted to make knives.
It was also the one of the first times that we created such an elaborate, high production value, custom filmed, custom scripted marketing campaign too, something that’s become a staple of ours, and something we’ve become pretty well known for.
We sold all 500. And then, more.
Made a second knife with Giri, the Honisuki.
And then the Nyakiri with girl_dm_.
And then the Circuit Breaker with Zentreya,
the Kikkerkiri with Takanashi Kiara and KFP,
the Dokiblade with Dokibird,
Shadowbringer with Giri/Jerry...
At the end of the day, I think, I was... I am still nervous. At the end of the day, I’m still not sure if anyone would buy the knives I designed without another creator’s name attached.
And even beyond that, I still wanted to write, and create, and... like many others, have seen creations that I’ve put incredible amounts of effort fall to the wayside, seen by only a handful of people, and disappear, forgotten.
But... I hadn’t really committed to myself. Not really.
All those campaigns we’d done for others, all those elaborate videos, sets, the scripting and writing and setup and everything else--
I wasn’t doing it for myself.
It was also the one of the first times that we created such an elaborate, high production value, custom filmed, custom scripted marketing campaign too, something that’s become a staple of ours, and something we’ve become pretty well known for.
We sold all 500. And then, more.
Made a second knife with Giri, the Honisuki.
And then the Nyakiri with girl_dm_.
And then the Circuit Breaker with Zentreya,
the Kikkerkiri with Takanashi Kiara and KFP,
the Dokiblade with Dokibird,
Shadowbringer with Giri/Jerry...
At the end of the day, I think, I was... I am still nervous. At the end of the day, I’m still not sure if anyone would buy the knives I designed without another creator’s name attached.
And even beyond that, I still wanted to write, and create, and... like many others, have seen creations that I’ve put incredible amounts of effort fall to the wayside, seen by only a handful of people, and disappear, forgotten.
But... I hadn’t really committed to myself. Not really.
All those campaigns we’d done for others, all those elaborate videos, sets, the scripting and writing and setup and everything else--
I wasn’t doing it for myself.
And so last year, for my birthday, I started VKS.
VKS turns learning to cook into an immersive experience where culinary battles rule this cyberpunk world. It’s kind of like if you took the best parts of Shokugeki No Soma(Food Wars), but threw in real, custom designed knives, a cyberpunk narrative experience, and had a Michelin Star cook guiding you along the way(me) to show you how to become just as good at cooking and cutting as the people you’ve seen through a gamified experience.
I’m over 400 pages deep in worldbuilding and pre-planning. But... there was a problem.
When VKS launched last year... It was successful beyond what I’d hoped. We raised $83,262.50 to get things started...
But when 2025 hit, and the tariffs... It put us into the red, just for material costs. And this project being what it was, required a lot more-- writing, artwork, 3D renders, prototyping, animations...
I was funding all of this out of my own pocket at this point.
Just because you’ve managed to brush the edge of your dreams and what you’ve wanted to do, doesn’t mean that economic realities don’t come splashing cold, hard reality in your face.
We were in the red on this project. In theory, the best solution was to deliver the knives, cutting boards, and other items we’d received, apologize for not being able to deliver the experience, and cut it off.
Sunk costs.
Everyone who bought into the BackerKit still got insanely good deals on quality equipment, after all. Who could be mad at that?
But... For this dream, for this chance to create something, finally, for myself...
I wanted to continue.
And that’s why VKS: Grey Market exists, and why I colored for 35 hours, and tossed it away.
This is the first piece of VKS anyone outside our backers gets to see.
There’s a lot of worldbuilding behind it. A lot of thought on how we’d deliver this small piece of content to support the narrative experience... but at the end of the day, beyond the planning? I had very little writing to do. Just a couple lines.
But I’m a little bit dumb. We have artists. Good ones. That's what a CEO does, right? I should’ve handed it off, gone and done something useful, maybe stared at some more spreadsheets or messed around more with the supply chain, or operations, or...
I had very little writing to do. And... This was going to be the first look at VKS.
And maybe I’m a little selfish. Because I wanted to have a hand in it.
Not just a little bit-- but to put in the work and effort, to create, to get to be excited about it, to be in there with the creators and make something and laugh and propose those crazy ideas that makes everyone excited and bounce ideas and say what ifs and hear me outs and everything that makes creating with others greater than the sum of its parts.
“I want to do the coloring.”
And that’s why VKS: Grey Market exists, and why I colored for 35 hours, and tossed it away.
This is the first piece of VKS anyone outside our backers gets to see.
There’s a lot of worldbuilding behind it. A lot of thought on how we’d deliver this small piece of content to support the narrative experience... but at the end of the day, beyond the planning? I had very little writing to do. Just a couple lines.
But I’m a little bit dumb. We have artists. Good ones. That's what a CEO does, right? I should’ve handed it off, gone and done something useful, maybe stared at some more spreadsheets or messed around more with the supply chain, or operations, or...
I had very little writing to do. And... This was going to be the first look at VKS.
And maybe I’m a little selfish. Because I wanted to have a hand in it.
Not just a little bit-- but to put in the work and effort, to create, to get to be excited about it, to be in there with the creators and make something and laugh and propose those crazy ideas that makes everyone excited and bounce ideas and say what ifs and hear me outs and everything that makes creating with others greater than the sum of its parts.
“I want to do the coloring.”
And no one batted an eye, and Angie smiled, and said, “Okay,” and handed me the lineart she drew, and trusted me with it.
No matter how bad I was, no matter if the color wasn't complete, or it didn’t make sense, or if someone else might have been able to do better... I didn't want this to become another project that I did nothing but manage and make decisions on.
Because I wanted an excuse to create. To get away from the spreadsheets, to get away from the supply chain, and all that stuff. I wanted to make things. I wanna make great things.
Fun things. Things that express me.
Express the world and emotions and the things that I think about. I want to create, to make things that connect with people, things that make them laugh, things that make them cry, things that make them think.
And when I set my pen to the tablet I’d bought so, so long ago, and booted up Clip Studio Paint for the first time in what seemed like years, and stared down the lines and canvas with all its brilliant unfamiliarity and intimidating emptiness...
I smiled, and eagerly messed up, and experimented, and painted in weird ways that didn’t make sense, and tried different things, and messed up my layers, and spent hours and hours and hours lost in frustrations and revelations and tutorials and my hand not doing the things I wanted it to and spent all my “free” time and then some sleep time until I looked at it, and laughed, and had “completed” six versions already and threw them all away to start again.
Because to me, the fun of creation is in the process of it. Not the end result. To me, creation is about the doing. It's being in the trenches, and in the weeds, and seeing all those minute details that you learn from and iterate from and understand the details and the giddy revelations and flow states and that beautiful moment when everything just clicks.
And y’know, if I were to make the “smart” business decisions, then I would use AI.
With the pace of advancement and the kind of things you can do now, where in another year, another half year, maybe even a few months, it’s near impossible to tell what’s human made illustration and what’s AI made...
The business case and numbers say to use AI.
But when you use AI to generate it all, you just don't think about things. You don't go oh, wait. Maybe this looks better. Maybe this works.
Maybe I should try that. Because it's those little details that teach you. The little things that help you learn along the way, and develop that taste, and understand what you’re doing and working with, and the intentionality of it all put together.
That’s why I’m building VKS the way I am. Because fundamentally, the story of VKS is a human story about found family. It’s about a bunch of misfits and messed up people living in a messed up world and doing their best to retain their humanity through it all.
And at the end of the day, every penny purchasing VKS items goes back into it.
Paying animators. Illustrators. Creators.
Making something that hopefully will help you, too, fall in love with cooking and knives the way I have.
I still love Vite Ramen. I still love what we’ve built so far, and am excited about everything that we’re doing, and our future... but I want to also start on this new path too, that lets me be who I want to be.
I guess, at this point, I should make a formal pitch, huh? Do my job as a CEO?
If any of this sounds interesting, then give VKS a shot, buy into the VKS Grey Market and get access to the beta, and support my dream of creating something expansive and deep and meaningful and useful, and support all the artists and creatives working on this project:
In a cyberpunk dystopia where Fractures leak runoff that warps physics and infects people with the inability to hold onto reality, FeedHubs serve as the last real community centers.
A combination restaurant, grocery store, and food factory, FeedHubs are where even enemies can sit down together and share a real cooked meal instead of something that came out of a Constitutor.
But FeedHubs hold a dark secret: the very Sanctuary Principles that prohibit violence give rise to a network of corporate espionage and infiltration, where loose tongues at the bar reveal more than any hacked database, and where the culinary battles over contracts can determine whether your FeedHub survives the month or gets absorbed by the people trying to destroy you.
The knife at your door is your entry into this world.
FeedHub VK-24601 needs someone to find out what happened to Mira, one of the cooks that disappeared under mysterious circumstances.
The only way to find out what happened to her is to live through her memories, learn what she did, and piece together what she learned that made her dangerous.
VKS turns learning to cook into an immersive experience where culinary battles rule this cyberpunk world.
Experienced through a rookie FeedTek's memories with real custom designed blades to practice with, learn knife skills and cook in the easiest, most engaging way ever, so you can fall in love with who you'll be after you handle the heat of the FeedHub kitchens.
Hope you enjoy the coloring I did with Vivian! If you’re getting into VKS, you’ll be seeing a lot more of her.
Remember to be kind, and savor life’s little victories.
-Tim
-Tim