We were lucky to catch up with Kaliva Morgan recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Kaliva thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

It all came to me as I was walking home from work one day and started to think about full work days and work schedules in general. I was working full time, dedicating 8-9 hrs a day to a company. I started thinking, “what if I took those hours and applied them to my own business?” This got me really excited. Then the question of what service or product I would offer came to mind. I started thinking about my favorite things and hot sauce came to mind. After years of looking for hot sauces similar to sauces in Guinea, my home country, I saw a need for savory, spicy and flavorful sauces in this industry and I also saw a need for more black ownership in this industry which got me excited once again to serve as representation for the community. I would offer a unique approach yo making the sauce. Majority of sauces on the market are fermented. I chose the West African style of making sauces which is more like a flavorful, spicy stew of ingredients. This allows for the flavors to evolve on the tastebuds. Once I realized I had an idea worth pursuing I immediately rushed home to get on my laptop, straight to Google Docs so I could get my ideas on paper and start making moves.

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

I was born in Guinea, West Africa where I lived with my biological family. At the age of 4 I was helping my mom cook food and transport it to the market where my family would sell it to make money. My family also sold palm oil, tailored clothes, and did hair so I come from an entrepreneurial background and spirit. Growing up my family saw education as fundamental and my mom specifically wanted her children to all be educated. The opportunity for this came soon after my fifth birthday. My family’s next door neighbors had gotten a new American tenant who had arrived in Guinea as a peace corps volunteer just as I was turning 3. I was very curious and eventually made my way to her place and befriended her. My family eventually would let me go places with her and hang out with her all the time. This became a very special relationship as she gave my family money to start school in Guinea. I loved school and was very excited as my family was too. Eventually it was time for her to return to the United States, she was missing her own family. Upon hearing the news, my family asked her if she’d be open to adopting me and helping me get my education. After some time, she agreed and I was adopted and brought to the states. I quickly started my education and started my American life. This included searching high and low for hot sauce that was as hot as the ones in Guinea and just as flavorful. For years and years I did not come across one. In school I was studying marketing and business communications, and once I graduated the idea of starting a business kept resurfacing in my mind. Then it hit me as I was walking home from work, that I could start a hot sauce business and make the hot sauce that I had been craving. I saw the hot sauces that were available and saw that the industry wasn’t making hot sauce like I planned on making it; West African Style hot sauce – a slow cooked delicacy filled with natural, flavorful ingredients.
I provide all natural, spicy, savory and sweet hot sauces for the community. Although these are West African Style sauces, they reflect some aspects of hot sauces you’ll find all over the globe which is why the hot sauce community I have cultivated with this sauce is so diverse. It can be enjoyed on a variety of foods all over the world too.
We exist to bring more balance and flavor into people’s lives so they can feel bold and more motivated and empowered to live their lives on purpose! Through the quality of ingredients, the balance of flavor and our culture of self empowerment and self determination we can continue to foster a community rich in resources.

Whether you’re an amateur cook or a high quality chef, evolution hot sauce offers a flavor profile that is bold, unique and compliments dishes with ease. There is sweet, spicy, and savory goodness in every bite of Evolution Hot Sauce.

We focus on quality, balance of flavor and culture both in our sauce making and our community as a whole.

We focus on quality environments (those that are enriching the community), environments that have a balance of flavor (mix of people and cultures) and culture (recognizing people of different backgrounds and practicing inclusion). We invite people to “taste” the possibilities and try new things!

I’m proud of my past and how it has helped me get to my present life. This sauce is helping build community one sauce at a time and it’s been a blast.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

When I first started experimenting with my sauces at home and finally got a good recipe I realized I needed a commercial kitchen. When I arrived there, I realized I needed to upgrade the size of my equipment. I’ve had to increase sizes every year or so as my business has grown. I used to postpone making decisions like that, but Realized quickly that what I was doing was a huge investment.

When the pandemic hit, I wasn’t able to vend in person so that income was nonexistent. I pivoted my attention to online sales through my website, Etsy, social media, and other e-commerce platforms. This brought a lot more revenue to my online sales and increased my clientele because people were home and cooking and spending time with family and a lot were trying new things, which was a big plus for the business. I learned in life that you have to work with what you have instead of dwelling on things you cannot control.

At times in my business I didn’t have money to go to certain shows that I knew were high producing because I didn’t have the money to apply. So I’ve had to pass on several events that were just over my budget, but this also left me open to the ones I could afford and at times brought in more sales and clientele than was projected. This taught me that you have to market the events earlier and target the marketing even more. It also showed that building a community around my product allowed me to advertise to them and invite them to the lesser cost events that may have not had the budget to market as much as the bigger selling events.

I lost a friend/worker who was very involved in my sauce production and sales. When this happened it was devastating and I had to pivot from this both emotionally and economically. I decided to be more strategic with the events that I chose to do throughout the year. I refocused on my budget and started using Uber to transport myself to and from events and I also started manufacturing a smaller number of sauces. I made sauces based on the number of projected sales. This made transporting bottles easier and made inventory counts faster and kept me more organized and able to focus on more aspects of the company more like packaging and e-commerce.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

I was working full time at a coffee shop, and doing side jobs from a Gig company at the time, so I saved money each paycheck and was able to pay for things for the business. Whether it was licenses or permits or equipment and ingredients I was budgeting for it. It would take 2-3 months to be able to buy items like pots or blenders, and that also allowed me to really research the different styles and brands and make a decision that would sustain the business for the longest time without breaking the budget. I counted on my part time jobs to fund my business and my lifestyle.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.evolutionhotsauce.com
• Instagram: @evolutionhotsauce
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/evolutionhotsauce