His quest to find a simple curry sauce that began in 2005 resulted in CurrySimple, a line of products now available at Whole Foods Market stores in four states and all three of The Cook's Warehouse locations.

And don't be surprised to find the 30-year-old entrepreneur in those stores, leading food demonstrations or checking out the positioning of his white-pouch packaging on the shelf.

The first time Moran tested his curries to a large audience at the Green Market, he had to rush back to his Poncey-Highland home because he almost ran out of free samples.

Matthew Hott, store manager at Cook's Warehouse, was among those sampling the sauces one Saturday. "Out of the bag, it tasted like some of the best curry you can really get anywhere, especially at home," he said. "Curry can be very time-consuming to make. He took all the guesswork out of it and provided just an extremely fresh product." The Cook's Warehouse invited Moran to sell his products, which include curry and pad Thai sauces, coconut soup and Thai tea. Within a year, both the red and massaman curries became top 10 sellers at The Cook's Warehouse stores.

Distributor John Magnuson with Atlanta-based Global Specialty Foods, which distributes CurrySimple to Whole Foods, said he was "absolutely astonished" by the taste. Besides flavor, CurrySimple was priced right ($5.95 for a three-serving dinner pack or $8.95 for a nine-serving family pack) to attract retailers such as Whole Foods Market, which started selling the product in its Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Alabama stores this year. "They are inundated with new products on a weekly basis and so to get through the clutter, the product had to be an exceptional quality and an exceptional value," Magnuson said.

Developing that quality took time, with Moran and business partner Nimitr "Lim" Harimtepathip, whose family owns a restaurant in Thailand, meeting at his house on Sunday afternoons to brainstorm recipes. They used his business partner's connections in Thailand to work with a company to create the sauces, going back and forth to create a taste that would appeal to American consumers. Their product was perfected and came in the week before Christmas 2005. It was then that Moran realized he needed to create a Web site. Using his background in Web development, he spent the next week working 16 to 18 hours a day to develop www.currysimple.com.

Moran started the company mostly with his savings and has kept costs down by handling many duties himself, including marketing and the package design. His "office space" includes a warehouse in Austell and his home. He's using a summer intern to help him shoot the videos that appear on his Web site, and plans to do even more online.

At Cook's Warehouse, Hott said Moran is always available if they need a product, acting quickly to fill an order within a day. "His enthusiasm for it is quite infectious. That's a major, major part in getting everyone else excited about it," Hott said.

Another way is through working with the media. Moran picked up the phone in early 2006 and called The Washington Post, which he read growing up in the Washington, D.C., area. He had impeccable timing. They were putting together a story on entrepreneurs. "I have a great PR [public relations] agent -- me," he said, laughing. "Right now it's more of growing the business, getting people excited. That's what I'm really focused on. Because if you do that, the money will come later."

Easy recipe