We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Julie Singer a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Julie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. One deeply underappreciated facet of entrepreneurship is the kind of crazy stuff we have to deal with as business owners. Sometimes it’s crazy positive sometimes it’s crazy negative, but crazy experiences unite entrepreneurs regardless of industry. Can you share a crazy story with our readers?

I own a very small food business. Among other things, I make very small batch hot sauces. On my website, I offer the option for customers to request for me to do custom labels for my products, for things like wedding favors, conference swag, business gifts, etc. My built in Shopify SEO must have worked its magic because a marketing company in California that works with Pirelli Tire reached out and asked if I could create custom hot sauce gift boxes for their customers featuring my hot sauces but their labels.

And so I was commissioned to put together 200 hot sauce gift boxes using their labeling. The first 25 or so I would mail directly to their VIP customers and the rest I would send directly to Pirelli in Georgia for their future use. I put together my price quote, including buying of supplies, purchasing of labels, shipping costs, costs of making the hot sauce, and a labor fee. I should mention that my company is me, so the labor was 100% on me. My hot sauce gift boxes contain four 5 ounce bottles, so I would be making 800 bottles of sauce just for this one order. My operation is still very small scale (think 2 gallon batches hand ladled into bottles) so I really was in over my head.

But, I persevered. It took me significantly longer to manufacture the hot sauces and assemble the gift boxes than I had estimated. However, at the end of the day, I got it all done. And Pirelli customers had reached out to my contact at the advertising firm to learn more about my hot sauces (the front label of the sauces was Pirelli branded but the back named the sauce, ingredients, and my company name, along with the nutrition label.)

So I ended up with some kind of unusual exposure that a regular marketing campaign wouldn’t really match. But it was a stressful experience!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I actually earned my PhD in Interdisciplinary Social Psychology in 2008 with an emphasis on criminal justice. I worked in this capacity in various roles over the years, focusing on juvenile justice and terrorism. Due to state government reshuffling the small department I managed was eliminated and I was placed into an administrative position. To say I was a bad fit would be an understatement. Several other factors soured me on working further in state government. I applied to many other kinds of jobs, but my area is kind of niche, and pre-Covid most companies would not allow folks to work from home (I didn’t want to move, I like the area I live in) and so that search fizzled out, which was frustrating.

Meanwhile, for years my husband and I have had fun with making foods that most people just buy – he cured bacon, we made sausage links, we made paneer and mozzarella. I got into home canning, making pickles and jams, etc. I also had kept a home garden for many years and recently had planted a lot of hot peppers. My peppers came in quickly and suddenly I had to figure out how to use 3 lbs of hot peppers (when most recipes call for….one pepper), so I started making hot sauce. I gave it away at Christmas and to friends and everyone said it was awesome and I should sell it.

I was very hesitant, as there are many steps and regulations (more so than I even realized at the time). Eventually, with my options dwindling on my previously chosen career, I decided to dive deep into this food business. And especially in North Carolina, there are many hoops to jump through. I was in new territory and had to learn a lot about stuff I knew nothing about.

My brand is still very small, but through creative marketing (being active on Facebook and Reddit hot sauce groups, sending samples of my sauce for folks to review, and things like the Pirelli campaign, I now have a small following and ship my sauces all over the country. I’ve even shipped to Australia and Canada.

I think my brand is unique in that it’s a woman owned business in a male dominated field. My hot sauces are extremely pepper forward, contain no pepper extract or coloring, and are described as very fresh. I make sauces from mild to crazy hot but even my crazy hot sauces have great flavor along with the heat.

I also interact with my customers on the before mentioned platforms and have even private messaged a few who wanted to get into the hot sauce business themselves, offering guidance and suggestions. I’ve met with local fans at festivals and pop up markets and it’s always great to have them come up and say they love my products and want to reorder.

My biggest obstacle now is scaling up. I want to increase production, but not for sacrificing quality of product. This has been something I have struggled with. I do enjoy being my own boss and working at my own pace. And who knows what the future holds!

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

There are a lot of gimmicky hot sauces out there. There are also ones that threaten to burn your tongue off but taste like Tabasco. I think customers appreciate that my sauces are what they are. Peppers are the number one ingredient by weight, not water or tomato paste. I don’t “cheat” and use pepper extract, both because I think that’s boring, and because it makes sauce taste like battery acid.

One local customer did a taste testing of 10 hot sauces with his friends and put it on Youtube. Of all the ones he tried, mine were the only ones that didn’t have silly warnings on the label about heat or exaggerate the spice. And, he said, mine were the only two that were actually really spicy! They had to take a 15 minute break after tasting my ghost pepper sauce. So I think they appreciate the approach I take.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Before Covid, I had been doing a lot of festivals and pop up markets in my area. It was a great way to meet folks and have them sample and buy my products. Then Covid happened. I started becoming more active in hot sauce groups online, promoting my products and their spiciness. This led to me shipping out orders around the country. I offered free local delivery to customers in my delivery range. This was contactless doorstop delivery (which I still do), so customers felt comfortable continuing to order from me. Now that Covid is becoming contained, I am continuing to do these things but am also again vending at local pop up markets.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.julzscreations.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/julzscreations/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/julzscreations