Hello everyone and welcome to the Within Range coaching podcast. I'm Ranger, a certified
holistic success coach. And in this podcast, I break down the journey entrepreneurs face
as they start their organizations, overcome roadblocks in their way, and create an impact
that lasts. We talk with entrepreneurs, nonprofit leaders, and purpose driven community members
just like you. Together, we learn how to grow our impact and develop ourselves as the people
behind the mission. My intention is to help more people, help more people. And remember,
if you're curious about expanding your impact, growing a community, or defining your mission,
vision, or values, we can chat off the record. You can find my info in the show notes or at my
website withinrangecoaching.com. We're also looking to build our sponsor community with
organizations and individuals who align with our values of fearless innovation, social responsibility,
and courageous candor. If you're interested in helping us highlight individuals doing great work
in the world and share these values, reach out to me directly at ranger at within range coaching
calm. I know you're just as eager to get started as I am. So let's jump right in.
Hey guys, and welcome to another episode of the within range coaching podcast. I'm your host,
Ranger Kielak. And we're still in the middle of my walk across America series where I'm interviewing
the folks that have made my walk possible in some way, shape or form. And today, we're welcoming two
guests to the podcast that have added a little bit of spice to my adventure. Jacqueline and
Kieran Parhar from the San Diego Pepper Company. Now Jack and Kieran are friends of mine from UC
Davis, Go Ags, and have been kind enough to send me a few bottles of their sauces so that I can
avoid flavor fatigue during my walk. Today, we're discussing resourcefulness, risk aversion,
and building a community centric brand. Let's get to it. Jack, Kieran, guys, how's it going?
Doing great. How are you? Doing good. Like we talked about off recording, I'm outside of
a Whole Foods right now due to scheduling conflicts with my brother's apartment. So that's fun,
but we're making it work. It's all part of your journey with this walk. I know. This is like the
weirdest location I've recorded so far. So I think this is the last recording I'm going to do anyway.
So nice to end it off on a banger, huh? Awesome. Well, Jack, Kieran, we've been friends for a while,
but can you guys just get the listeners a quick update, who you guys are, what you guys do,
and set your intention for today's episode, please? Yeah, we so yeah, I mean, we went to
I mean, we met Ranger in college. But yeah, we are married. We have a business called San Diego
Pepper Company. We started it about like two years ago. Yeah, we make hot sauce locally in San Diego
ourselves. We've kind of been more of an effort that's all built off just blood, sweat and a
little bit of tears. We didn't take any money. We started a business just on the kind of whim
of we learned to make hot sauce. We started in, we tasted our hot sauce on our honeymoon in St.
Thomas. It was like a really good one. We came back, tried to recreate it. Couldn't really,
most of the ingredients were local, but it just kind of got us really in love with the whole process
of bringing something from ingredients to table that can just sit on a shelf. So we started
experimenting, got some really good recipes, went to market. And yeah, just really taking the whole
process and enjoying it while we go. And our intention. Yeah, our intention for today is
definitely, I want to center around our business and how we kind of approach most of our problems.
There's a lot of a fail fast approach of anytime we kind of ran into an obstacle, it's, you know,
we might not have a way of figuring this out perfectly, but let's do it fast. And if it's the
wrong way, then at least we learn from it. Our business is really centered around giving back
to the community. So we're really trying to build those kind of pillars early on as a company to
start giving back to the San Diego community. And there's a couple of cool ways in which we do that.
We'll touch on later. Yeah, for sure. And I always love the stories where it's like these small little
things happened that turn into this bigger thing. So what you guys just said there about,
you just tasted a hot sauce on your honeymoon. Like, what do you mean? Like,
why did that turn into this whole thing that you guys are doing? And you know, you guys adopted a
highway, you have a sauce that's specifically for the local animal shelter, and you're just doing
all these things in the community. Like, what was so important about that one moment that led to all
of this? I feel like it was like a couple things. Well, first of all, I did not like hot sauce
growing up. Like I couldn't handle any heat. So I like wouldn't eat it. But slowly like with him
cooking Indian food for me, I started being able to handle heat. And so like on our honeymoon,
I tried so many different things, like so many new things I would have never tried. And then he
loved this hot sauce. I tried it and it was well, I actually really liked the taste of this. That was
kind of the hot sauce moment, I'd say. But when we got back, it was more just like, like he'd always
want to start a business. I always thought about it. But I'm a very process, I need to know the
whole process first before to commit to something. So I feel like without him being like, let's jump
into this, I would have never done it. And so I feel like that kind of just started that. And then
the whole San Diego community piece of it, I think we just always knew that we didn't really just want
our business to be just about the product and stuff. We very much wanted to like, do something
to help other people or help dogs help anything. So I feel like that kind of just
having a hot sauce business kind of turned into, oh, we can actually use this to help.
Yeah, I'd always grown up making salsa and different things like that and cooking. Hot
sauce was never something I touched on. I always used a lot of it. But once we kind of came back,
we both were like, man, we missed that. We brought home like six bottles of this hot sauce that we
liked and ran out quickly. It gave it to friends, family and used a lot of it ourselves. So once it
was out, I was like, you know, let me try doing this. Let me figure out how to make some hot sauce.
And I think it was in Googling a couple different recipes. I saw a couple people who'd started hot
sauce businesses. And yeah, both of us kind of had that itch of wanting to start a company.
I'm like, all right, let's see what this looks like. I kind of really gotten like
a lot of the science behind making hot sauce, how to get a shelf stable, didn't want to use
any preservatives. So all of our ingredients are clean. We made a couple different batches.
It's funny. The first sauce we made was it was a habanero red pepper. It never saw the market
because we wanted to start really quick. I made a big batch of about maybe 80 or so bottles,
which is big for at home just doing it before we knew we'd have a business. I ordered labels,
was ready to go. They had to send it into the state and that one got a different classification.
So we couldn't actually make it. So I think I still have a roll of about 200 labels for a sauce
that's never seen the light of day. And it's just part of the process where if I hadn't done that,
then I wouldn't have known the process, known that, hey, this label supplier is not good.
Next time when we have it really ready to go, let's kind of learn from these mistakes.
And figure out how we can get classified in the way that like we can make these sauces. And
now we have four flavors that are doing pretty well.
So yeah. Yeah. And I guess on like the logistical side, when you say there's different
classifications for the sauces, like what, just for my own curiosity, so that we know
what we're talking about for a second. Yeah. So the process for each sauce, you
have your recipe, you make your sauce, and there's a couple of different licenses you need.
A lot of people, when they start out businesses, they usually go through cottage food program,
which is you can make things in your home kitchen. In San Diego County, hot sauce is exempt from that.
So you cannot make hot sauce in your home kitchen. Just given the risk of botulism is the big kind of
risk there when you're dealing with either fermented foods, shelf stable products, and
not using a lot of artificial ingredients, it gets a little risky. So you have to make
sure that you have a dialed in recipe. So part of that process is after you get a
packaged food registration with the state, you would get samples of your product. You send it,
they partner with a food lab, actually UC Davis food lab over in the Bay Area. They have that,
they'll test it for water activity, pH level, and kind of get you back an S letter, which tells you,
is this okay to use as shelf stable? Is this okay to use shelf stable, but only made in a cannery,
or are you okay as just a packaged food? So we were hoping for as packaged food,
then you can make it in a commercial kitchen. So our first one got under the cannery classification.
It was considered an acidified food. So we couldn't use that unless we paid a lot of money
for inspections, moved to a different kitchen. And yeah, so we had two sauces, along with that
first one that we sent in, that was our San Diego sauce, Indian spice sauce. Those were classified as
just packaged foods. So we were ready to hit the ground running. Yeah. Yeah, we committed to those
two. And then we were like, okay, well, we still want like some sort of habanero sauce. So eventually
tried to figure out like how we could make that and then get it classified as a packaged food.
And we knew that we want to try different flavors and stuff too. And then the it's habanero brown
sugar. And so that kind of came after our trip to India, we had a lot of like instant coffee with
brown sugar. And it was like, well, brown sugar sweetness could be like a cool thing to add. So
yeah, came home, started making a couple batches kind of burned our tongues a little bit. The first
couple spoonfuls like, okay, let's tweak the heat a little bit. You know, you get six tastes, you
know, okay, let's tweak the flavors a little bit. And it's a fun process. I'm kind of making those
spicy ones that ended up tasting really good. And it's a fun thing to kind of we have an idea for a
product, let's just go for it. We made a lot of batches of bad sauce made a lot of batches of
some good sauce, and then just kind of tweaking it to this is the sweet spot and getting a sauce
ready for market. That's awesome. So with with the way that you guys produce the hot sauce right now,
is it out of a home kitchen? Is it out of like a fancy commercial like what you guys are shaking
your head? We rent a kitchen over in Encinitas. That's where I work my full time job. So after
work, she'll meet us up there. We bring all of our equipment, all of our vats containers, blenders,
we can't store, we can't store anything at the kitchen. So we're always packing up our car,
like morning update before something packing everything up, running a restaurant depot grabbing
a couple like the vinegar that we need and things like that. And then I'll meet him at the kitchen
after work. And we'll spend like, four ish five hours sometimes like making hundreds of bottles
of sauce. That's awesome. One of the other guests that we had on certified pies over in Little Rock,
Arkansas, they started out of a like one of those community kitchen startup incubator kind of things.
And it sounds like it's a little bit different from what you guys are doing. Like it's not so
much like that incubator, because I think they had most of their supplies there. So ours is actually
the Encinitas Community and Senior Center. They rent a banquet hall for rentals, and then they have
a kitchen available for use. So technically, we rent the banquet hall because it comes with the
kitchen. So that's kind of how we get our kitchen. It's very convenient because I work really close
there. So after work, I can take off an hour early sometimes then kind of at four o'clock,
the center closes at eight and we're chugging along till we get it figured out. Yeah, there are
other commercial kitchens that allow storage, things like that. We just haven't found one that
works better than what we have set up right now. It's fun to kind of be so quick and as I'm still
working, it's nice to kind of pop over and then do everything at once. Yeah, we've explored a couple
other options, but it's easy, convenient for us right now to stay at that location. And it's
worked well for us aside from the storage aspect. So we make it work. That's awesome. It's like
close for private event and it's just two hot sauce makers in the kitchen. But you know, the
center staff really like it because they don't have to set up anything in the bingo hall. So
it's like just keep it for whatever you need tomorrow and we'll just be in the kitchen,
just ignore us. That's funny. How did you guys come across that as a, I guess a resource or
is that something that was just the local hot sauce community knew about or did you have to
hunt it down or how did that work? So I used to work at the Encinitas Community and Senior Center.
So knew that the kitchen was there and I used to run the senior lunch program that happens there
like on weekdays, Monday through Friday, they provide lunch, free lunch for seniors. And so
knew that as a kitchen. And when we started, we were like, Hey, I know that people rent
out the banquet hall. Like, would it be possible to rent out just the kitchen? So kind of just
talking to my coworkers and seeing what our options were. And she was like, I mean, technically you'd
be renting the banquet hall too, but I don't see why you couldn't just use the kitchen. And so
just started that process there. So that's how we found out about the resource. I knew the kitchen
well also. So that helped. We knew that we would have the space that we needed without the storage,
but we just knew that we had enough counters, had a dishwasher, we can sanitize bottles,
things like that. So yeah. Gotcha. Just being resourceful with what you have and looking for
opportunity, asking questions really, I think is the main thing. I feel like a lot of folks kind
of get caught in that. I don't want to ask because I'm afraid of the answer, but what are they going
to do? Curse you out for asking if you can use the kitchen? Exactly. That's funny. And I'm definitely
one of those people who is, oh, I don't want to ask. And so it was kind of been overcoming that.
He's helped me a lot with that is overcoming that fear. Well, why not just ask? Worst they're going
to say is no. Yeah. And that was one of the things I have written down that I was going to kind of
ask you guys about is that difference of risk averseness between the two of you. Is that
something like, like it sounds like Kieran's more using terms from econ class, risk seeking
versus risk averse. Is that kind of the duality going on or do you guys kind of feed off each
other or how does that play into it? A little bit of both for sure. We just kind of ironically talked
about this the other day on kind of how we view risk. It's we try to make it a win-win situation.
We're never going to put ourselves in a situation to lose. Nice alarm going on there. So when it
comes to risk, if we're taking something like the business in general, take it as if no one wanted
to buy the sauce, why are we doing this? We're putting in a lot of our money, a lot of our time.
We kind of view risk as a, hey, let's take this chance to see it to the end. What do we gain if
nothing works out the way we're planning? So we kind of always look for, are we learning from this?
When we go to street fairs, it's a little more expensive. Are we doing this to sell the bottles?
Let's say no one wants to buy it. Well, then we just got a great deal on some marketing. We met
a ton of people and kind of looking at it that way where it's not going to be a, is this going
to work? Is it not? We usually find opportunities where, hey, if this doesn't work, what do we still
gain out of it? Is that worth it? So we always try to have that kind of floor of assume the worst
case scenario, hope for the best, but always plan for, we're paying money to have this turn out in
the worst case possible. What can we make out of that anyways? I feel like kind of more of like the
calculated risk. This probably is a risk, but what are the options and what could happen?
What's the worst case scenario? I feel like I've kind of grown into being comfortable with that.
We've kind of become that balance for each other. I'm definitely less of a risk taker personally,
and I don't think that you're necessarily a risk taker. Like you've always kind of had that,
well, what's the worst that could happen kind of mentality where I think I do think of,
not like you don't think of all the worst things, but I only think of those. And then
my brain doesn't go to the good things. So I feel like we've become that balance for each other.
Well, let's just do it. Why not try? And starting a business is such a good way to kind of like put a
magnifying glass where you really see it. It's okay. We have to make these decisions. It's not a,
hey, let me check with my supervisor. Hey, let me get some opinions. It's like, no one knows the
right answers with you. You got to figure it out. I'm probably a very plain terms. Like I'm
definitely more of the risk taker. Like I got the first sauce already to go to market and it couldn't.
And it was like, oh, this is a sunk cost, but kind of always looking at it as, hey, we took this risk.
It didn't work the way we planned. What do we gain out of it? And it's always been good. And it's
kind of helped us grow in a lot of ways. Yeah. And it sounds like I was going to say,
it sounds like it's a lot of reframing if things don't go the right way or they do,
or they don't, whatever worst case scenario happens. But it also just sounds like knowing that each
thing that you guys do has multiple different facets that can be beneficial. If you go to a
farmer's market and you sell a crap ton of sauce, that's great. And you also did marketing and you
also did this, but worst case scenario, it's not, I don't know, it's not the end of the world. If
things don't go your right way, because at the very end of the day, it sounds like even you guys
have that mentality of it's feedback. We're learning. Maybe we'll do things different next time.
Exactly. I think that that's kind of been how we've approached it all. Just we're getting people to
try the sauce. Worst case they don't buy it, but we're getting the name out there. We're,
like you said, marketing, just talking to people. And it's been a cool way to,
cool way to run our business. I think just being open to whatever happens with what we're trying.
And so much of what we do is just grassroots. I mean, when we're selling sauce to people at
any event we go, it's like, hey, we're the people who make this. Even if you're not buying,
like we really do want your honest opinion. There's a couple of times where we give out a ton of
stickers, swag, things like that, just to make someone's day. There's two parents with a kid
that's crying. And I know a sticker might help this situation. Offering just making a kid smile
sometimes. We're a small business right now. It's not like we're making millions at a farmer's
market. So it's nice just to kind of have those little moments of kind of showing, hey, like, you
know, we're a business, we're not here just to take money. Like we're here because we care about
this. We like meeting new people, being involved in the community. So it's always that other side
of things where why did we start the business? It wasn't just to sell as much hot sauce as possible
without regard. It was, hey, we want to be involved, kind of learn how to make a business and
kind of improve the community. So wherever we are, we try to do that. I have a bunch of little notes
written down already. It's, you know, grassroots, beyond the sauce, friendly neighborhood pepper
company, like just a whole... Hey, everyone, just a quick message. You know that my mission with this
podcast is to share stories of influence and impact so that we can help more people help more
people. But to do that, I need your support. Please rate, review and share this podcast. If I could
ask for just one favor, it's to just leave a review. It takes about 10 seconds and a few clicks,
but it means the world to me and could inspire someone else to make a difference.
Thank you so much. And now back to the show. Let's focus on the community aspect for just a second.
So I think you said earlier something about ingredients to table. Are all of your ingredients
sourced locally as much as possible? Or how does that... Is it like from the very beginning to the
end or am I asking questions that you don't want to? I'll tell you how it started is I was growing a
ton of peppers in our apartment and I was like, I'm going to make hot sauce based off pepper
plants that I grow and I'm going to do this. That's why I was like San Diego Pepper Company.
We didn't want to focus on hot sauce. Like let's do foods. Living in a two-bedroom apartment with
no balcony, you quickly find out how much... Peppers don't want to grow there. They don't want to grow there.
And also there's just not enough space to even if they were growing well, make enough to make it
viable. So we started like that. There's not a lot of growers of the specific peppers that we're
using. So we tried to keep a high quality. We get our Chipotle for the San Diego sauce from LA along
with the habanero for 805 heat and the chili durable for our spicy pepper sauce. The only one
that we source outside of there is for the Indian spice sauce. Almost all of those spices come from
India. Speaking of peppers. There's our peppers making some marks there. But yeah, all the Indian
spice sauce ingredients are sourced from India as much as possible. And then yeah, we try to keep it
as we can. Right now we make sure that the peppers are dried first before we put them through the
process. That's kind of our way of doing things. So we kind of get those. Our goal long-term would
be to have some agriculture property where we could actually grow some peppers and make things
happen. That'd be ideal. That's a long way down the road if we're to make that happen. But yeah,
we're always experimenting. There's a couple local farms up in Encinitas. There's one that we're like,
hey, what do you think about doing a sauce with your stuff you grow? So we're working now on a
fermented sauce on that. Seeing how it's going to work. It might not. It might. But always trying
to keep that San Diego community as the kind of North Star to follow. Gotcha. Yeah. So I mean,
yeah, I mean, that totally makes sense, especially for the Indian spice sauce, which is my favorite
so far because it doesn't hurt my tummy and doesn't hurt when you're eating it. God, there's so many
things I want to ask you guys about just to kind of back up to the when you're making the different
sauces. Cause I don't know, ever since I started working in wine around 2020, 2021 or so, and just
realizing that there's more to wine than just getting drunk, that there's all these different
flavors and scents and all these different aspects that go into it. I've started seeing that come up
in a lot of other foods and beverages, you know, cheese, beer, I guess now hot sauce. So when you're
looking for these different sauces, like how do you know when one is right? Cause right now you guys,
it sounds like you guys have a pretty solid stack with your four sauces and there's some like R&D
going on in the background. So how do you know when it's time to add another one to the lineup?
So yeah, it's kind of been a fun process of a lot of trial and error. Made a lot of sauces early on,
but a lot of it is kind of just finding that one recipe that you're like, okay, this has potential,
where can I improve it? And I mean, with the Indian spice sauce, that was probably the only one that
I think took one go and we're like, yep, this is good. That was kind of the, I always been cooking
Indian food and I was like, I want something low heat that's not going to hurt people's tummies.
So let me just take all those spices, threw it together. And from there is actually kind of
where we built others. It was like, okay, we can kind of take this process, apply it with some
spicier peppers, see how it goes. And so kind of just having building blocks of this recipe works
for this one. Can I turn that into something else? So we've slowly built the 805 heat was kind of
its own thing where we wanted kind of a thicker sauce. Something was a little different, changed
up a lot of our base ingredients. But then you kind of go back to like the spicy pepper sauce.
We kind of stole a lot of the San Diego sauce kind of processes and then kind of built it into a new
one that's slightly spicier, but it's a lot of just trial and error. I mean, our first batches
were just a blender and a lot of peppers on that first sauce and never made it to market. It was
five pounds of habaneros peeling them by hand, blended everything. And that's, you know, a little
NutriBullet sized thing. So you had to go in batches, pour it into a bigger thing and then
start cooking it. And a lot of just fun in the kitchen, a lot of messes, a lot of way too spicy
sauces, ones that I've tried that I can handle a little bit of heat, but they've just kind of
burnt my tongue off. So. And I think too, like we started out with the Indian spices and the San
Diego sauce. And then we knew we wanted something spicier as well. This was even before we started
farmers markets. We like knew that we would want something spicy because when people are going
like, Oh, Hey, there's hot sauce. Like you want something spicy. Most people who are like just
looking and seeing hot sauce. And so we then we have the 805 heat. And then we kind of realized like
our spice level from the San Diego sauce to the 805 heat is a big difference. Like some people who
can handle the San Diego sauce, like my mom, who can't handle any heat can like pretty much take
the San Diego sauce, like absolutely cannot handle the 805 heat. And so I feel like we knew we wanted
something in between. So it was kind of experimenting with that. And then taking kind of just hearing what
people thought about the sauces and taking that into account. Like some people like spicy, but
they don't like sweet. And so like kind of taking people's feedback in what they thought about the
sauces and using that as well as like a guideline for us with experimenting on flavors. Yeah. I mean,
that's, that's also an interesting thing because when it comes to the different products or services
that people have, like for my coaching business, like I ask people at the end of every call for
feedback, what works for them, what doesn't. And it sounds like, I mean, with my service, it sounds
like I can kind of tailor make it to everybody's preference for the most part with enough sessions
together to figure it out. But with you guys, when you're taking that feedback, because everybody has
a different taste, everybody has a different whatever, and your guys' product actually takes
a lot of time to change or refine or use that criticism or whatever you want to call it feedback.
How do you know when to take people's feedback or when not to, or do you just kind of try to have
a diverse spread of products or how does that work for you guys? I'd say there's a lot of take
everything with a grain of salt, but you know, a couple of grains start piling up and it's like,
okay, this is probably a real thing that we need to start doing. You definitely, I'm sure you know,
it's like with a small business, a lot of people love to give advice and it always comes from a
advice and always comes from a good place. So you always have to remember, it's like, this is your business. What's the best decision for everyone you're trying to reach? Because
there's some people who come up and they're like, I want the spiciest thing you got. And you're like, I trust you, I'm gonna give you the spicier one.
And then like, why would you give me something so spicy? I'm like, I'm so sorry, I did not mean for this to happen.
I'm sorry, I trusted you. You trusted me and this we're in a bad spot now. So trying to find that where it's like, okay,
this is probably a good sign that we need something a little less spicy. This is a sign that we should always
kind of start from the least spicy and build our way up when we're having people try it. And
also if we have kind of repeat customers, it's also a big thing. Farmers markets, people who always
bought this sauce and like kind of experimenting with new packaging, new flavors saying, I mean for
the spicy Pucker sauce before we had it ready to go to market, we were sampling it saying, what do you think
about this? Do you think we should change it? Do you think this is a good flavor profile? Is it too spicy?
And so we got some good feedback, kind of tweaked things before it even hit the market to kind of get
a gauge of, is this more of a middle ground sauce? Is this spicier? Do you want it spicier?
But yeah, a lot of feedback.
It's one of those things where we take and listen to all the feedback because we definitely want it
with just being us. But like you said, taking it with a grain of salt because we can't apply it as
quickly as like you can with your coaching. Like we, it has to be, we have to experiment with the
flavor. We have to see how that works and what that process actually looks like for us.
And so just kind of taking those and like keeping those in the back of our mind while we like move
forward with other flavors and things like that.
Gotcha. I like the way that you put that was, you know, take it all with a grain of salt,
but after a while those grains start to pile up. I like that a lot. I think that that is a good kind
of a, kind of a gauge for something like this. The other thing that I wanted to ask you guys about is
your being self-funded and your fail fast, I don't know, feedback loop approach.
Yeah. So when it comes to being self-funded, like I don't know, I don't know if I want to ask
like specifically how much everything costs it. I don't know. I like asking numbers, but I feel
like people don't like giving them. I'm kind of feeling out the room. Yeah.
Yeah. So what did that process look like when it comes to, you know, you're starting out a business,
it sounds like both of you wanted to start a business, not necessarily a hot sauce business.
Like how did you know that the money and time and energy effort, blood, sweat, some tears,
when did you know that that was going to be worth it? Because Jack is doing this full time
basically now, right? I am. Yeah. This is my full time thing as of just January this past year.
Yeah. So only six, seven months in. So how did you know that it was going to be something
viable to jump into full time for at least one of you?
Yeah. Well, backing up a little bit to just when we started it, we had no clue what we were doing.
It was, I always loved hot sauce. I was loved working in the kitchen. My past life, I wanted
to be a chef. That was my goal. And then I kind of pivoted. I was like, ah, maybe not
working in a kitchen, but I really always had that love for food, cooking it, eating a lot of it. And
this was such a cool opportunity to kind of dive into, I've used hot sauce so much my entire life.
I never knew this was a possibility of something I could start. But I was like,
oh, I wonder if I could bring this to market. I've always had a passion for it. And it was
something that never really considered. And then we just put in a lot of money to testing,
getting branding together. Thankfully, we were able to cut a lot of costs,
just at work and multimedia. So a lot of early branding, graphic design stuff, taking house. But
at this time, we probably spent, I think, eight months before we actually made a batch of sauce.
And in that time, probably spent close to like $4,000 in total of just licensing, a lot of
licensing, a lot of equipment, just basic things. I mean, our first batch we made out of a pancake
batter filler for our funnel, rather than any sort of filling equipment. So we tried to cut costs and
kind of use muscles and a little bit of creativity to start, but put a lot of money not knowing
whether this would even sell. When we made our first batch, we were like, oh, this is going to
be a good product. So we didn't really have a clear road ahead. It was, let's just see this
through to the end and make sure if nothing else, we started a business and failed it really quick.
And that'd be a cool thing to say. So we were kind of just like, definitely in like a, I'd say,
I guess, like privileged spot to be able to like fund something like this. And we were like,
we're going to be able to do this. And we were like, we're going to be able to do this. And
I'd say, I guess, like privileged spot to be able to like fund something that we had no idea if it
was going to like work or not. And it was, I think it was one of those things that like, I think
eventually at some point, if it wasn't doing anything, we'd stop putting money into it. And
then, but we were like, let's just kind of do this while we can see what happens. And then
now our business, like we're able to kind of fund, we do like business to business, like we'll,
we don't put any personal money into it anymore. Currently, we haven't needed to,
which is really nice. And then we're going full time personally, it was kind of,
we were kind of in this, we'd been doing the same thing for like a few months. We started
farmers markets in like end of May last year, end of May, 2023. And then we did two farmers markets
was Saturday and Sunday were filled all summer with both of us working full time otherwise,
and then doing farmers markets Saturday and Sunday. And so we were very, then we were making shots
every week because we didn't have this office to store things in. We were storing things in our
living room because we had a roommate. And so we were like, couldn't make enough sauce to sustain
that. And so we were super busy. And then we were like, okay, we need a day off. So we took off our
Saturday market and we were just kind of in this, like we've gotten into a couple of stores, but we
knew that we could do more, like with more time. And I was kind of in this standstill with my job,
like wasn't getting jobs I had applied for like promotions and things like that. And so it was,
what is the next step? Like, am I happy staying in this? And also our business is kind of in the
standstill as well. So it was kind of this. We were growing, but it was like, it's almost like
our time was the biggest hindrance on, we can't keep this moving. We can't make enough sauce. So
we kind of were in this spot where we don't have the time to make more. We can't really produce
more because we don't have the time to do more sessions. So what are we going to do as far as
we can't even go to a new store and say, Hey, you want some, because then we're going to be stretched
thin. We don't know if we'll be able to provide it. So kind of needed something to boost that where
we need more time to sell. We need more time to make sauce. We need more time to build
a lot of the other stuff as far as our online presence, kind of get into some more markets.
We've been pretty centralized at that point in North County over where we worked. So kind of
getting that opening up and broadening our business a little bit. And we didn't have a way of doing
that. So, and there's farmers markets like every day of the week in San Diego. So we can't do this
because we're working. I could probably do a few if I stopped working at my other job. So it kind
of just was like, let's take the leap. And we've, we've been able to grow like more since then we've
gotten into 20 stores and two restaurants that buy our sauce. So it's been slowly growing now,
but it was also like, we had to run the numbers of, okay, this is how much you make it your job.
We kind of read it all out. I get benefits through my job. I work in IT and it's relatively safe.
And so kind of getting those numbers together of this is how much if we sold X amount these
farmers markets, what are the numbers look like? And it was pretty cool to be like, okay, this is
actually like, we started this not knowing. And now it's a viable option to say, hey, let's try
and grow this. And I think it's a smart move to kind of, yeah, quit the full-time job and go to
making sauce. With great sauce comes great responsibility.
With great sauce comes back to the friendly neighborhood hot sauce company.
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your spot on the mountain. Again, be sure you get in now because I cannot wait to see you there and
witness the peaks you'll reach in just a few weeks. So when it comes to that, because that's what I was
always kind of asking, like that opportunity cost that you're losing of jack-not working in a full
time whatever job, like I don't know, I feel like there's all these different advices, and this
isn't financial advice obviously, but everybody, you know, you should make your full-time job
salary in six months, whatever, you know, like everybody has like these different formulas,
like what were you guys looking for before you made that jump for Jack to kind of be, it sounds
like the full-time marketing slash CFO slash COO slash slash slash, so. I think as far as numbers
go, the big thing is, as you said, we were in a privileged position, my job is very stable and it
was nice, so we had this kind of, we could live off one income, so that was a big factor of where
we're not a one-person company, there's two of us, so it's not like it's one person deciding, hey,
I'm the sole income for my family, and I need to move to another one, it was, it's just the two of
us, we don't have kids, so it's, hey, we can give up this income, do this, I have enough stability
where we can live off that, so it was a nice position there, I definitely, if I'm giving advice,
yeah, I like numbers, make sure the numbers work out, and for us it did, so it was nice to kind of
be able to take that leap and boost the business a bit. Yeah, I feel like there definitely can be,
like, for some people, it can be like, well, you need to, like, be making your old income, right,
because that's what we're living off of, thankfully, we, like, we're in a spot where my
income already was kind of just added, so if we weren't making anything outside of that, if
we didn't have a business and I was just, I don't know, did nothing, which, which I wouldn't want
to do anyways, but we would be able to make that work, so again, kind of that privileged position
of, like, we worked out those numbers and it worked out for us, but I feel like just kind of
everyone needs to take in those numbers themselves and see what they can make work for their own
business and for themselves. Yeah, so it sounds like it's like a very personalized, there's not a
secret formula, like your hot sauce, it's more so based off the individual and their family really
looking at your, again, being resourceful, seeing what you guys have, what you guys have,
seeing what you guys have, what's really going on behind the scenes, making that decision for you
and your family. Kind of moving into your community-centric aspect, so you guys are San Diego
Pepper Company, very rooted in the San Diego area, which is a pretty large, I don't know,
there's more than a few hundred people there, I'm sure, so when it comes to being, it sounds like
being engaged, active members of your community is very central to the business. It sounds like no
matter what the business was, that is something that you would have as a huge value for your company.
Yeah, that's early on we talked about, hey, if we're going to start a business, like,
it's going to be fun to learn, but we kind of wanted to keep in mind, like,
what do we want out of it? It's what makes us happy, what's our long term, do we,
is our goal to be in the kitchen making hot sauce 24-7, is our goal to be selling, and kind of came
down to just, well, there's the stuff that we really care about. If we had, you know, money wasn't a
factor, what do we want to do? And a lot of that came back to the community of stuff, ways to give
back, things that are important to us. So, early thing we started is, what about the idea of just
a fund? Like, we take some of our money and we donate it to nonprofits that we care about. So,
we'd started that early, it was a nice little tab on our website, the community fund, saying, hey,
we give to a local nonprofit, we started off with just the animal pad, it's a nonprofit where we got
our dog from, like, this is a great place to start, and our contact form, so if people had other
opportunities, hey, reach out to us using the contact page. So, from there, as we started getting
our name out a lot, we had a couple people just, anything from small, hey, could you donate some,
we're doing a raffle for a nonprofit for the Boys and Girls Club to, hey, we're taking donations,
hey, could you volunteer at these things we're doing, do you want to join our, like, the Claremont
Town Council, the nice little area where we're in, just different ways to get involved in the
community, even if it wasn't necessarily nonprofit only, just people who needed help, and it was a
cool thing to kind of start early on. Gotcha. And to kind of, I don't know, jump more into that
specifically, when it comes to the spicy pupper sauce, can you talk a little bit about why, it
sounds like animals and dogs and critters are, you guys are all smiling now, but that's very important
to you guys, and again, another huge value that you guys have, can you talk a little bit about more
why a pepper company is so involved with the local animal shelter? I feel like that kind of started
because, I mean, personally, I've always loved dogs, and always, like, the reason why I went to
UC Davis is because I wanted to be a vet, did not do that, not even close, didn't even, not even
close to that, but I was like, I want to help. Me too, sister, me too. Yeah. Are we all in that book?
What is it, the Animal Science to Business major pipeline, that is like a very true thing.
Yeah, and so it was very much just like, always wanting to help animals, and specifically dogs,
like for me personally, and when it was in like 2020, we found out about the Animal Pad, because
it was kind of like, okay, we're working, but like, I'm not super happy in my job, but like,
want to help dogs, so we found out we could volunteer at the Animal Pad, like, and so I
started volunteering, they are doing like, helping them get scheduling vet appointments for their
rescues and stuff, and so slowly like, just helping them was, helping animals was just a big theme,
and then slowly got too busy to like, do that aspect of volunteering for them, but so when
we started, it was like, you got too busy at Luke, because it was, you had adopted, because I adopted
pickles, because I was working there, you're right, you're right, I was volunteering, and I was like,
just always looking at their dog, and I was like, this is so great, and then I knew I wanted to
adopt a dog, and ended up finding pickles from the Animal Pad, she wasn't named Pickles there,
she was named Kate, but we quickly changed that, quickly changed that she's very much a Pickles,
and so adopted her, and definitely got a lot busier with that full time training her, and
taking care of her, and then when we started our company, it was like, okay, let's,
let's get back, and like, we know that we personally like supporting the Animal Pad,
so let's start there, and then move on, and then the spicy pepper sauce just kind of,
it kind of fell into our lap, which is cool. We talked about the idea of like, oh, it'd be cool
if we get a partnered sauce, never did anything with that, just an idea between Jack and I, and
then we, I was at work, and got a little, hey, new contact form submission, and Josie over at the
Animal Pad was kind of the one who spearheaded it all, and she had reached out saying, hey, like,
my name is Josie, I run the, I'm in charge of the behavioral team over at the Animal Pad,
we saw on your website that you guys are supporters, and have a tap alum, we kind of train what we call
our spicy pups, and get them into training, where if they might be a little uncomfortable with people,
or other dogs, and need that extra care to kind of get to a state where, hey, they're up for adoption,
and she's like, this kind of brings us to our point, we're looking for local hot sauces to partner
with, would you want to do a sauce that just either raises awareness, or gives a portion to
getting help for these dogs that need extra training, so we saw that, I was like, screenshot,
I was like, look, we just got sent, like, popped on a call, I think later that day, I was like,
let's do this, let's make it happen. And then at that point, we had already had the recipe for the
spicy pepper sauce, and we just did not know what we wanted to do with it at all. I was like, I don't
have a name, so this is going to be kind of a sauce that we wait on, see how it goes, and then
opportunity came up. And I was like, let's go right away, let me get a label together, I put as many
dog puns as I could think of, along with the help of ChatGPT. And you had drawn Pickles.
Yeah, I drew a picture of Pickles for the label. And so she's on the front of the label. We have
another dog, Marlon, as well, but he decided that he's okay with sharing, giving him the spotlight
on this one. Especially because she's our tap alum, Marlon, we rescued otherwise, but just wanted to
kind of, that kind of fell into our lap. And it was like, okay, cool, we've always been wanting to
like, like just help animals in any way. And that's kind of how that started. And then,
yeah, that was pretty recently, by the time we went to market, we did a couple events, we started
with Cardiff Dog Days of Summer. It's an event over in Encinitas where there's a lot of dogs.
We did that, just kind of get the word out, got a couple people, met some, made some cool
connections with other kind of nonprofits, people that help dogs that were super interested. So
we had it available. I think we started with a batch of 250 sauces. And right now it's not been
a month since we dropped it and we were sold out of that first batch. So we raised a good amount
of money for that and a nice little chunk. And it's something we're hoping to do just in,
in perpetuity. Yeah. And then just kind of giving back in other ways too. I feel like the spicy
pepper sauce and like helping animals is one thing. But yeah, we've recently adopted the highway,
the 805 highway and our, and basically we just have, we clean that up once a month. And so giving
back in that way has been cool recently too. We just started that too, like a month ago.
Yeah, this is cool. Our habanero sauce is the 805 heat has a, has the kind of highway logo behind it.
So just kind of, as we have these ideas, kind of like you touched on before, it's asking questions
and we saw a sign, call this if you're interested. I was like, I wonder how much that costs. I had no
clue it was a free program by the department of transportation. They're like, Hey, you have to
clean up the street, like a highway this many times. Like I love that. That's awesome. Like our roads
get cleaner. We get to adopt a highway and it's a cool way to just kind of give back. Like they,
they actually had it available on the exit that we live on the Balboa exit over in off the 805. So
we do that once a month, we just go out there with trash bags and get everything cleaned up.
It's a cool way to like, it's really rewarding where it's, you know, this is a fun thing that
we're able to do, clean up our neighborhood and kind of give back in a little way. Even if it's
not in the monetary, we can always go back to kind of how we started blood, sweat and tears and kind
of help, help things in a way. Yeah, that's a good point. I think that's a good point.
Help things in a way. Yeah, that's awesome. And what I really like about all of that is that it is,
it's, it's value stacking. Like these are values to me. How can I use my business as a way to be
involved in the community in the ways that I care about with the animal pad, with other rescues,
with the adopt a highway, which I also thought you would have to pay something for. So that's good to
know that it's a free thing and you just, I don't know, put in the elbow grease to make it happen.
Exactly. Yeah. It's a fun thing, especially it's definitely rooted where we want those values to
kind of be at the corner of it. You know, the San Diego part of San Diego Pepper Company is
definitely focused on community down the line. We have tons of ideas of just ways we can help. And
we want to keep kind of building on that. If we, we kind of believe we don't start it early, then
it's kind of one of those things you can always put off of, Oh, I'll give back once we've gotten
to this point, we'll give back once we've gotten to this point, but it's nice just to do it now,
you know, kind of make those sacrifices and think it's makes it more fun. You know, if the business
is just a business and it starts slowing down a bit, then it makes you want to kind of give up.
But if you have kind of bigger goals outside of just making hot sauce and selling it, it really
keeps you motivated when you, it was 9 PM and you're carrying up all these boxes of very heavy sauce,
you know, there's kind of that deeper root that keeps us going. And I think that it's cool that
we like have these ideas on our own, but we've been approached about like helping in different
ways as well, like with the spicy pepper sauce. So I think like, we're super open to whatever,
like anyone has for us, but also like looking for those ourselves kind of whatever, whatever comes
our way. I like how with the lady from tap, she's like, all right, let's, let's talk numbers. And
you guys are like, talk numbers, we have on each other's numbers. That's how we're talking. You're
like, here's this picture of pickles. We already have the sauce is already in production. You said
you wanted something. It's already happening. Don't worry. There's no going back. You sent that
contact form and we were fully committed. She's like, yeah, when we come to an agreement, you're
like, what do you mean an agreement? You messaged us and we said yes. Yeah, I think it was later
that day. I already, I was like resizing, making a logo. Yeah, it was really quick turnaround. We
were hopping on that as soon as we could. Gotcha. I love that. And just for a couple business
tactical kind of questions, it looks like you guys have a ton, like you were saying, how many
locations are you guys in? Like over 20, you said, or you were in 20, that's a mix of grocery stores,
grocery stores and shops. And then we got two restaurants that buy our sauce. Gotcha. So when
it comes to approaching these different businesses and making that connection, you know, Hey, can we
have some shelf space? Can we have some shelf space, which I assume is a very valuable piece
of real estate in a store? How does that conversation kind of go? Like what is your,
I don't know, what is your ratio for nos to yeses? You know what I mean? Like how does that work?
I think so our first two grocery stores that we got into was, I think those are both great stories
of the different ways it can happen. The first one was I had messaged on Instagram, Jensen,
it's an independent grocery store on over near the Point Loma area. So I had messaged saying, Hey,
like, love to drop off some sauce. And they're like, yeah, sure. Like, you can come in, like,
talk to the manager, whatever. It was very like, here's the info. Cool. And so we just walked in
confidently, like, yeah, here, here, drop off samples. We're expecting it for and then we've
met the grocery buyer there, Mark. He was really cool, dude, because excited to take them. He's
like, yeah, sweet. Like a little caught off guard because we came in with no prior contact of just
walking in confidently saying, Hey, here's our sauce. Yeah. You want to try it? Told us, or like,
kind of told the story of us and totally make it all. And didn't hear anything about that for
about three months. We didn't follow up. We were very just, we did this on a whim on an evening,
because I was like, Oh, Jensen's, this is a place that, you know, this granola company I follow got
into. Let's see if they'll talk to us. We didn't do anything. And then I think it was about like,
three months later, we have QR codes on the side of our bottles. And we got a contact form because
he had scanned our QR code and lost our business card and anything like that. He's like, Hey,
you want to come talk tomorrow morning? Like about your sauce? Like, cool. Sweet. Like, this is
awesome. He went in there. He's like, Yeah, I lost your business card. And he's like, I was eating
some food and like, I had your sample sitting there. I was like, Oh, let me try it. Like, he's like,
that was so good. And he tried the 805. He liked it. And he's like, Yeah, I want to bring in your
sauces. And that's how we got into our first store. That one was super just on a whim. We decided,
I think we're hanging out just on our laptop. I was scrolling through Instagram and saw that just
kind of like, Hey, let's go do this right now. Like, so we got up, did it. And then that was
really nice too, because like, Mark was super helpful. Because we had obviously never gotten
into a grocery store before we're like, what does this process even look like? Like, how do we give
you the sauce? Like we are working with a distributor, like, can we just bring you the boxes? Like,
can we just hand you the sauce? And then how do we get paid? Like, how do you pay us things like
that? So he kind of walked us through that, like, whole process, which is super helpful for our next
upcoming store as well. And then with Seaside Market, it was like our second grocery store
got into that was another cool story. Kieran was just very persistent. Yeah, I came in, I
live close by and it was one of those things that we'd done the Carter Farmers Market as part of our
kind of suite of farmers markets. We were doing a lot of people were like, Hey, are you at Seaside
yet? Like they carry a lot of local brands. I was like, No, like, let me walk in. And this was a
little bit different. I was like, Hi, who's the buyer? I speak to him, same Steve, really nice guy.
But he's like, Hey, like real estate and this is like, it's really hard. Shelf space is very
valuable. It's like, perfect. Like, I understand that I just wanted to like meet you. Like, I'd
love to talk more. We make hot sauce in the air. It's all made in Encinitas by us. Like, he's like,
okay, yeah, cool. Like, right now is not really when taking it. Awesome. Perfect. Understand. So
after like the third or fourth time I came in, then he's like, Okay, like, what do you want from me?
Like, how do you go on? I was like, because he said he doesn't like hot sauce. He doesn't really
want to try it himself. Like, do you have someone who can try it? I'd love to drop off samples,
get it in there. He's like, Yeah, he's like, he's out on vacation, but bring me samples and make sure
it gets to him. And then about three more times after that, he's like, Okay, okay. He's like,
how many sauces do you have? Three? He's like, had the guy try them yesterday. He loves them. We'll
take them all. And I think part of that was probably a little bit of if I take the sauce in,
maybe this guy won't bother me every week. And also part of, Hey, I'm persistent enough. He's
making the effort to come in. And we do a lot of demos that the stores were at. So we go out and
help them sell our product. So things kind of showing that, hey, we're not just here as a one
time thing, hoping you'll buy it on the spot. Like, we're really invested in the stores that
we target because at the time, you were still working full time, we had a very limited space.
The stores that we did go to were very like, this would be a perfect location for a start at,
we want to grow it slowly. But a lot of asking questions, a lot of dropping off samples, and a
lot of now it's just, yeah, kind of, kind of a similar process, but like finding out the
buyer's information, just being persistent about trying to get in contact with them. We've gotten
into sprouts and Chula Vista, but that one took like dropping off three sets of samples to three
different people. I don't know where they all went. But three different people got samples of sauce.
And like, I was on hold for like an hour and a half before I actually talked to the buyer. And it
was like, honestly, if I wasn't just doing this full time, I wouldn't have been able to sit on the
on hold for an hour and a half waiting to talk to the buyer. And so eventually, that one was a lot
of persistence too. So I think just like being able to, for me, it's knowing the buyer's information
stuff beforehand, it's hard for me to walk into a store blind and just like drop off samples. That's
like very anxiety filling for me. But like knowing the information and calling. So we've kind of
figured out that balance where Kieran will find out that information for me. He's okay with making
that initial call, Instagram message, anything contact, and then I'll go bring in the sample.
So that's kind of our process now of trying to get into stores and following up because
they have a lot of other things to do versus follow up with us.
And we find too, even on accounts that have said no to us, just going in there being genuine of,
hey, I want to know the process. How do we get in here? Like, is this something you guys even
consider? I'd love to do it. And even if they're not interested in the product, they're usually
very helpful of this is our process. We can't take you in unless you have a distributor.
This is where you could do that if you're interested. If you're looking for another
spot, I know so and so has bought independent sauces. So you can try that. It's like, it's cool
how even if you get a no, it's still building a network. Then if we do have a distributor and
come back, we already have made a connection. We already kind of know the buyer's names and
just kind of making it where it's not a chore for them to listen to us sell a product instead.
It's more, this is what we're doing. We're excited to help you. And we truly do believe in our
product. So it's not like it's easy thing to sell when you're like, hey, we help all these ways in
the community. We make this sauce ourselves. It tastes delicious. Do you want it? Kind of a genuine
connection has been a goal for sure. Yeah. And that's something I was going to echo and say also
is that the people that say no usually have more info. It's not just no hard stop. Like that's
something I've learned with the walk is, Hey, can I stay in your spare bedroom? No. Awesome. Do you
know anybody else that has a spare bedroom that would be comfortable with it? And I've gotten
quite a few connections just from asking that follow up question of awesome. You're not interested.
You can't no problem. Who else? So I think that's another fun little interesting thing. But you guys
in terms of following you guys on your hot sauce, friendly neighborhood, hot sauce people,
adventure, or for people that want to get your sauce, what would be the best way for folks to
connect with you? We're most active on Instagram, all of our social medias at SD Pepper Company.
And you can order our sauces online at SDPepperCompany.com. And if you're in the
San Diego area, you can go on our website. There's a location staff that has all the spots we're at.
We're in a couple of spots that are outside of San Diego too. There's one Empire Comics over in
Sacramento carries our sauces. There's a couple of booths in Utah from Burn Your Tongue Hot Sauces
that stock our stuff there. And then a shop in South Miami, David's Been Here Hot Sauce Store that
stocks there. So a couple of spots you can find us. It's pretty cool. But order online. If you're
not interested at the time, you can always shoot us a message and we're you're talking to us when
you find it. So. Gotcha. Awesome, guys. Well, thank you so much for sharing your story and
some tidbits of info. I'm pretty sure that a good amount of listeners will be able to find some
value for their business or being able to implement what you guys have shared today. So thank you so
much. Thank you. And that's it for today's episode of the podcast. One more huge thank you to Jack
and Karen for joining me on today's episode and sharing their story with us. It's clear that they
are really the friendly neighborhood sauce company of San Diego. They're helping local animal
shelters, cleaning up their roads and building themselves as a cornerstone in their community.
If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to subscribe and leave a review. And while you're
at it, be sure to check out San Diego Pepper Company on all their social media platforms,
which will be listed down below in the show notes. And as always, remember to have fun,
stay safe and be yourself. Thank you for listening.