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HOW TO MARKET A PRODUCT THAT HAS A LOT OF COMPETITION AND WIN

A discussion with Matt Sisson

John Debevoise:Greetings everyone and welcome to another serving of Business Soup Talk Radio. If it’s in business, it’s Business Soup. I’m your host John Debevoise. We will be speaking with none other than master chef Matt Sisson of Ghost Scream. It’s an assortment of chili sauces that he created as an entrepreneur going out on his own. Learn about his development, recipes, how he discovered an angel, and let’s hear how Ghost Scream is managing to get its product to the market. Ghost Scream, “Enjoy with your eyes wide open.”

John Debevoise:When you say you’re a master chef, is there a certification or can I be the master of my grill, flames and all?

Matt Sisson:Everyone can be the master of their grill, of their kitchen, yes. Technically, there is an allocation. There is a certification to become a master chef. It takes many, many, many years of working, but I think anyone who has the ability to use multiple techniques and multiple types of cuisine, it just takes seasonality just to have the ability to have an ace up their sleeve, to work with curve balls, be able to really take any type of challenge and make it into something unbelievable and memorable is really a master.

John Debevoise:Well, and being a master chef, it’s very much like any other business. You have your idea. You’ve got to plan your menu. You’ve got to have the right people, whether it be the prep, the serving, and then there’s what we call the execution. That’s the cooking of it. And of course, presentation. There’s a lot to the presentation. Every aspect of small business can be served right there on the plate, in hopes that your in planning that your guest is going to enjoy it. Very much like being an entrepreneur such as your program and your product, Ghost Scream. Let’s talk about Ghost Scream.

Matt Sisson:Yeah, let’s do it.

John Debevoise:Tell us, what is Ghost Scream?

Matt Sisson:Ghost Scream is a line of products. They’re chili products. We use the hottest natural peppers out there, and we blend them with other vegetables and other peppers to create flavor that is not only spicy, but also delicious. We like to think that we are bridging the gap between heat and flavor. My goal has always been to take something that is crazy spicy, super hot, and blend it down to still allow people to enjoy the flavor, but not be overwhelmed by that heat, and that’s really what Ghost Scream’s been all about.

John Debevoise:Your products are chili sauces. What’s the difference between a chili sauce and a hot sauce?

Matt Sisson:It basically is the same thing. I do have a few products that are more chili-based, less vinegar-based, but the original hot sauce is more like a traditional hot sauce, a regular kind of traditional taco sauce. And then we did start to branch to more simpler products with less ingredients in it. So our chili garlic paste and our chili garlic jam are a little bit more simple, where you might just think of it a bit like a chili sauce. I think that they are kind of one in the same. Some people just call hot sauce, chili sauce. I think you could almost sub one in for the other as far as a term’s concerned.

John Debevoise:Okay, so there’s really no definition or a dividing line between a chili sauce and a hot sauce. One can be either or both.

Matt Sisson:Yeah. I think it really just kind of depends on how … is it a scallion or is it a green onion, you know? That’s just really kind of how some people describe it.

John Debevoise:Is it a scallion or a green onion? We have the master chef here who knows the difference. We’re talking about his entrepreneurial adventure, along with his wife, called Ghost Scream. It’s “Enjoy with eyes wide open” is the tagline. Matt Sisson is our guest. Matt, I met you at the San Diego Fair, formerly known as the Del Mar Fair, where I grew up. And as my audience knows, I showed horses and did the race track scene, but I’ve always enjoyed going into the halls, whether it be the Crosby Hall or whichever one it is, and that’s where I found you. You were giving out samples of Ghost Scream. When you decided to become the entrepreneur and walk away from the master chef, what made you go that leap?

Matt Sisson:Great question, John. What really happened was I kind of thought there might be a shelf life on me being an executive chef. A lot of times, we always work so many hours, and we call those big days career days. The career days are like Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day and New Year’s Eve, Christmas. Those days are days everyone is enjoying time with their family, but as a chef of a fine dining restaurant, those are days where you have to be hitting on all cylinders. It’s a premium meal at a premium price, and you get home and everyone’s having a great time together and we’re just dead tired. It’s really when everyone’s off and having a great time, the chefs are working, and I just kind of wanted to possibly move away.

Matt Sisson:I mean, my father is a patent and copyright infringement lawyer, and when I was a child, I used to always see new inventions that my dad might bring home to do some work on. And I was always inspired by these cool little things that people were coming up with. And so I thought I always had it in me. There’s a lot of opportunity in the food industry if you know what you’re doing, and I saw that there was really a void of products like hot sauce that needed flavor with heat. And as a chef who’s been always working with balance and flavors, I thought I could do something that would fill that void. And at this time, hot sauces are really sticky. It’s something that almost anyone has heard about and is very intrigued about, and so I thought that would be a great opportunity.

John Debevoise:How did you see a void? When I walk down the aisle of hot sauces, it’s the full length of the aisle, floor to ceiling. Where was that void and where would I find that opening for Ghost Scream type of chili sauces?

Matt Sisson:Well, I think people know flavor, and I think they’ve been fooled a lot of times by sauces that are out there that just are void of any L-O-V-E. That’s really the key. You got to put that in a bottle, and if you can put L-O-V-E in a bottle, if I could take a fine dining pallet and put it in a bottle, wow. You would really would have something there. And that’s what I thought. I thought, “Well, there’s so many bottles that just are salty, over vinegary.” Really, I don’t know if there was any real care or thought process that goes into it. They just said, “Let’s just put all this in a bottle and sell it to the people.” I think that people have a discerning, that when they taste something good, their are eyes are wide open to what is the possibility of heat with flavor.

John Debevoise:So it was like lightning in a bottle?

Matt Sisson:Yeah, exactly. I wanted you … I gave that, I served that one up to you, John. I wanted you to hit that one out of the park exactly. Lightning in a bottle.

John Debevoise:That’s right. I was sitting here just with that on the tip of my tongue waiting for the opportunity. Our guest is Matt Sisson. He is the entrepreneur, the creator along with his wife, of Ghost Scream. It’s the tagline is “Enjoy with eyes wide open.” Matt, let’s talk about where would I put these various chili sauces? The one that I got from you at the fair was perfect. It was the one that went with the shrimp that I created. It was the Curry. What are the other flavors that you have?

Matt Sisson:The original hot sauce, Ghost Scream hot sauce, is a grand world champion, one that in New York City, that sauce is like an everyday taco sauce. Just heat with a lot of flavor, almost like a chile de árbol sauce. That’s something you could put on your eggs in the morning. Put on your tacos. Just a great everyday kind of use. People love hot sauce on pizza, on chicken wings, in soups. I think it’s like the one product. That’s the beautiful thing about hot sauce these days. It’s that one product that can carry over to almost all foods. Ketchup sometimes has its one place it can be. It kind of limits itself, but hot sauce really does go on everything. So that’s where the original came up. That’s been our flagship sauce.

Matt Sisson:Then we also have the chili garlic paste, which is more like a Sambal Oelek, which is basically chilies, garlic, salt, and vinegar. And we fire roast and smoke those peppers so you have a real smoky, roasty garlicky flavor, but it looks almost like the texture of a salsa, but has just a great sauce too. Lends well to a cooking to combining with other condiments.

Matt Sisson:That’s a really fun one, but it is our hottest product and then we had the chili garlic jam, which is a sweet sauce. People love to use as barbecue sauce, as a glaze, or something you could use as almost like honey. You had the Curry. That’s a very unique. It’s thickened with organic coconut that’s just has a beautiful floral too. It’s got a real velvety texture from the coconut, but it’s a traditional Southern Indian style vindaloo that we used the Moruga scorpion pepper with. Our newest one is the our Verde sauce, which is just a traditional green sauce that you can put all your eggs. It’s great on enchiladas. It’s great on breakfast burritos. It’s just a great, light, easy living, summertime green sauce.

John Debevoise:If you’re listening to this serving of Business Soup, we’re talking with Matt Sisson. He is the co-founder of Ghost Scream. It is a series of chili sauces. If you’d like more information on his products, go to bizsoup.com and checkout this serving of Business Soup on our podcast. Matt, you were talking about the various products and I was admiring the artwork that your wife created and the presentation of such. When you went through the entrepreneurial spirit of this, when did you pull the trigger and say, “Okay, it’s time to cook?”

Matt Sisson:That’s a great question because it started, my last executive chef position, I ran a private country club just up the street from the race track up in Solana Beach and one of my servers turned type two diabetic and he was really frustrated trying to get his diet back on program, was realizing that his love for heat was going to be challenged by the amount of sodium and sugars that are in a lot of those sauces. And he expressed his frustration to me and said, “Could you make a hot sauce for me?” And I thought about it and I said, “You know what? Let me give it a go.” So that’s kind of how that process got started. And then I started doing the research on how to get the product manufactured, looking for a co-packer, someone who could carry all those licenses and permits, and be able to put my recipe in a bottle.

Matt Sisson:And I was a little bit hesitant to put all that upfront money to launch something I had no clue if it would be successful or not. And a wonderful thing was two of the members at my club had asked me how about this hot sauce that I had been making for this server. And I kind of went over the story about how I was kind of on the fence on making this and they said, “You just wait one second.” And she pulled out her wallet and gave me almost the entire amount of money in cash. “You go do that right now.” And that’s how I did it.

John Debevoise:So you had yourself an angel at the table?

Matt Sisson:I did. Or I had someone who just pushed me off the cliff.

John Debevoise:And gave you a set of wings. Whatever metaphor you want to use. You never know where you’re going to meet your angel in business. But here you were serving up as a master chef and someone said, “Here’s your wings.” And obviously invested in your company, gave you the opportunity to become that entrepreneur, to create Ghost Scream, a series of chili sauces.

Matt Sisson:Yeah. I think it was somebody who just believed in me. That was all I needed was someone to say, “You know what? I believe in that idea.” And that’s just what did it, I didn’t need too much. The fire was in my belly. That always had been there. It was just like, “Okay, she believes in me right now.” Then that just gave me that little nudge, just enough to take that next step. And I think that’s what a part of being an entrepreneur is. It’s the ability to keep on taking those next steps.

John Debevoise:Well, I’m being that entrepreneur, now you had the resources. Now you had the financial resources. Now you had to put the pieces together. And there’s a lot more to creating a business than most people understand. And this audience knows that for a fact. What were some of the challenges that you had now that you were funded? What was the next step and how do you deal with the regulations that go with it?

Matt Sisson:I think the major thing for me was does this recipe that I made for a gallon or two gallons times out to 2200 pounds, 200 gallons? And you know a lot of times, John, there’s this law of diminishing return, I guess you could say, that there’s just, salt doesn’t times out all the way. If you took that same recipe that had a tablespoon or a half a cup of salt and you’re going to times that by 200, it doesn’t add up. The salt just overtakes.

Matt Sisson:So that was the biggest challenge was trying to make sure that the recipe times out correctly, that it as it got larger, that it still kept its integrity of its flavor profile. That was a really big one. Once I was able to get that down, I think the next step was making sure the label looked good, that it had pop to it, that you would gravitate towards that bottle because like you said, there is a sea of hot sauces. So I had to differentiate myself because once they grab it, now they open it, now it got you, and now you’re going to love it. Those initial steps are the biggest ones for me.

John Debevoise:What about regulations and finding the people that could stir the sauce, package it into the bottles? And of course we all know there’s a selection and opportunity for the packaging. You already discussed the label and such, but when it came to finding the right outfit that was going to be able to cook it, pursuant to federal and state and local regulations, how difficult was that?

Matt Sisson:Well, we call them co-packers. These are people who have the licenses and what they end up doing is they take the recipe, we cook the recipe, and then we bottle it, submit what our pH is, and then we submit that to the state and the state makes recommendations and then it gives us something called an S letter. And that S letter is only good for the co-packing facility that submitted it. So you really do have to find a co-packer, someone that can work within your budget, within where you think you can move the product. Because, to me, it’s always been, I tell people all the time, if you can’t sell 150 cases, which is 12 in a case, if you can’t sell 3,600 bottles in a year, then you really probably shouldn’t be in this business.

John Debevoise:How do I know that when I’m in a fair place or at the corner store or anywhere and somebody says, “Here. Try my homemade, my handy dandy whizzbang hot sauce.” How do I know it’s been prepared properly in accordance with the laws that are applicable in the marketing of a product such as a hot sauce?

Matt Sisson:Well, you really don’t, and that’s a lot of times an issue, but basically if you wanted to make something like that, it’s the standard kind of canning technique. So a lot of times, the requirement is you need to get the product up to 190 degrees. It needs to have salt. It needs to have some sugar or some vinegar. That’s what keeps the pH down, which restricts bacteria growth. It needs to be heated, like I said, to 190 degrees and then poured into a glass bottle that’s been cleaned and sanitized. And then the, it’s always just the you invert the product and let it cool inverted. And when you flip it back over, just like your grandma or your mom used to make a jams and jellies, the heat, with the being upside down, creates a vacuum and it kills all the bacteria that would be in that bottle. So I mean that’s a quick version of a way that anyone could make a hot sauce, but basically at that point, now you’ve got a safe product.

John Debevoise:We’re talking with Matt Sisson from Ghost Scream, “Enjoy with your eyes wide open.” The entrepreneur, along with his wife, created a series of chili sauces known as Ghost Scream. If you’d like more information about the product, his company, well, visit Biz Soup and you can get a special offer that we’re going to make to our audience here on Business Soup for get some scream in your house, Ghost Scream. Make them scream, but with a smile on their face and their eyes wide open. Like to invite you back in another time to discuss the presentation, Getting Somebody into your Booth. We’re going to find out how he got me and everyone else into his booth by using a wonderful smell. Matt, thanks for joining us here on this serving of Business Soup. Ghost Scream, “Enjoy with your eyes wide open.”

Matt Sisson:Thanks John. I appreciate it. Had a great time.