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Editor’s note: This is the first of three stories highlighting the prize winners from the 2025 STARTUP Franklin Southampton program.

The seventh round of the STARTUP Franklin Southampton program featured three prize winners at the program’s Awards Night & Expo on Wednesday, April 16, at The Hubs Vine.

As Franklin Southampton Economic Development Inc. (FSEDI) has described previously, STARTUP is an award-winning business plan competition that serves to provide financial assistance and business training within the city of Franklin and Southampton County limits.

Earning the first-place prize of $20,000 for the seventh round of STARTUP was Keeya Young and her Royale Sambal business.

At the awards ceremony, FSEDI President and CEO Karl Heck said, “Keeya’s business concept is the production and distribution of sambal, the spicy chili paste that could become the next great taste sensation of the United States.”

Reflecting on winning STARTUP’s first-place prize, Young said, “It still feels like I am dreaming. It means a lot to me because I never expected this would be happening at all. It means a lot because I am from a family not really wealthy, but I have a big dream to make this Royale Sambal be big. My biggest dream is I want to see my product on the (store) shelves, and I believe this $20,000 will help me to put me at that level.”

Young said the prize money will help with packaging and marketing and to move her operation from the kitchen in her house to a certified commercial kitchen.

Royale Sambal has been in operation online at www.RoyaleSambal.com since March, and Young has been selling the sambal hot sauce offline for regular customers since December.

For now, she is the business’ sole employee.

“I’m the cook, I’m the packaging, I’m the everything,” she said.

She said that operating this particular business has been her dream since she was 10 years old.

Young grew up in Malaysia, and a roadside store was operated within the family, giving her an instinct toward business.

At one point in her life, she sold cakes and had a telebusiness.

She said that later, she moved to Singapore and worked in tech support. After that, she wanted to learn how to be in the food and beverage business, so she went to work in that industry for two or three years to learn how to run the whole process.

She moved to the U.S. in 2022, living in Suffolk from January-September of that year before moving to Franklin, where she resides now.

Some key people in her life have been instrumental in helping make her business dream become a reality, and she made a point to recognize them.

“I would like to thank my husband, Andre Young, for his unwavering support from the earliest stages of Royale Sambal,” she said. “I am also deeply grateful to Hannah Carlin for being a strong source of encouragement and support throughout this journey. Their belief in me has been invaluable.”

Young is hoping to move Royale Sambal’s operations to a larger kitchen in May or early June, and Heck indicated FSEDI is helping her with that.

Young said she is waiting for an agreement that would enable the move.

“I don’t want to have people ordering but I don’t have stock in hand, because we sold out on the Expo night,” she said. “I was like, ‘Wow!’”

She also noted, “I’m looking for in six months maybe to have our storefront in Franklin or in Southampton County. We are looking for that one too.”

For now, customers can order her product at www.RoyaleSambal.com and also via messaging on Instagram (www.instagram.com/royalesambal) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/RoyaleSambal).