himself in the previously mentioned $450,000 hole, 44 years old with no formal education and no formal training, running a tiny restaurant called Clubhouse Bar-B-Q, just outside of Detroit. Jack had to declare bankruptcy to hold onto his lease, was taking the bus to work as his car had been repossessed, and was having tax issues with the IRS.
Desperate, one day Jack pulled out a five-gallon bucket, peeled some onions by hand and in 15 minutes made what is today known as Garden Fresh Artichoke Garlic Salsa.
Jack started putting his salsa on the tables of the Clubhouse Bar-B-Q; after a few weeks, people were standing in line on Friday and Saturday nights to get in.
One day, out of nowhere, Jim Hiller, owner of an upscale chain of metro Detroit supermarkets that bears his name, walked in and told Jack one of his employees said he just had to try Jack’s salsa. Jim told Jack that he had been looking for a good fresh salsa for 20 years to no avail, and he asked Jack to whip him up a batch.
Jack did. Jim liked it and asked Jack to start making it for his six-store chain.
Thus, what is today the best-selling brand of fresh salsa in America was innocently born.
Soon, in addition to Hiller’s Markets, every party store in the area started picking up Jack’s salsa. Word starting getting out about how good Jack’s salsa was, so a local news station, Fox2 Detroit, decided to do a story on this eccentric guy making this salsa in the back of his restaurant.
There’s an old maxim that says there’s no such thing as bad publicity. That’s generally true, unless your city manager is sitting at home watching Fox2 news, aghast at this guy making salsa in the back of an unlicensed restaurant in his town.
So the next day he showed up and threatened to shut Jack down. Jack, though, befriended him, and together they found a former video store nearby, with floor to ceiling windows, which Jack converted to a salsa factory.
Jack and his wife, Annette, and their five children now found themselves making salsa for 10 to 12 hours per day, and Garden Fresh Gourmet continued to grow. After a few years, it was finally picked up by a major Midwest chain, Meijer.
A local developer then convinced Jack to build a 25,000-square-foot plant, which he did. It opened just when I first met Jack in New York.
Which brings us to our lunch when we got back to Detroit from the conference.
“You know,” Jack said, “everyone told me I was crazy to go from 3,000 square feet to 25,000 square feet, that you don’t increase your size eight-fold, and I’m starting to think they’re right. Why don’t you move your business in with me, outsource your manufacturing to Garden Fresh. That will help pay my rent, and I’ll give you a free office – you can focus on sales and marketing, whatever you want.”
I did just that, and after a few months our talents seemed to complement each other, so Jack asked me to be a partner in Garden Fresh.
That first year together, 2002, Garden Fresh recorded $4.6 million in sales. I distinctly remember meeting with Jack and saying, “If we could ever get this to $10 million and pay attention to our margins, wouldn’t that be a great life?”
Well, that seemed to happen in about 15 minutes.
By the middle of the decade, we were up to $30 million in sales and recently crossed the $100-million revenue mark. Garden Fresh is now the number 1 brand of fresh salsa in the United States.
We eventually made our way up to become the third-largest hummus manufacturer in this country, the largest brand of tortilla chips merchandised in the deli, developed a top-ten line of dips, ship over a million units a week, and in the midst of all this, received offers from some of the largest food companies in the world.
All before being approached by the Fortune 500 company that would eventually purchase us.
Doing all this wasn’t easy. In fact, there were long stretches when there were more bad days than good. We were often stunned, and often heartbroken, over what was happening to us.
But it was an adventure. In fact, the adventure of a lifetime. Through it all we uncovered powerful secrets that directly led to our success.
In Irrational Persistence I describe both our adventures and our misadventures.
Adventures that illustrate that you’re not alone with respect to the challenges you might face.
Misadventures that will enable you to avoid our mistakes as you face those challenges. Secrets that can be applied directly to the challenges.
Secrets that can help not only the entrepreneur but that are valuable for the multinational company as well.
Secrets you can implement to accelerate growth and minimize risk.
Secrets that illustrate that, while I hope you never find yourself in the position we did, starting with less than nothing, even under those conditions building something great is still possible.
1
Summon the Courage to Enter the Dark Room
“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”
So how do you launch a business, even with less than nothing, and somehow get to the point at which some of the largest companies in the world want to buy you?
What’s the first step?
The first step is into the dark room.
The dark room is what confronts everyone who is not living the life they’ve imagined for themselves. Who is professionally unfulfilled. Who finds that condition unacceptable.
And who is determined to do something about it.
And also those who determine that doing something about it involves developing a product or service, then launching it, either within an existing company or doing so independently on their own.
It’s one thing to have an idea. Actually making it a reality is another entirely. Actually bringing it to life requires facing a moment of truth.
What’s that moment like?
Imagine you’re standing in front of a door that leads into a room. A dark room, a room completely devoid of light.
Dark rooms are frightening, potentially filled with peril. There is tremendous ambiguity involved.
It’s natural, and certainly rational, to walk away from a situation like that. To not enter the dark room. To stay where you are, where you can at least see what’s around you. Where you’re comfortable.
But it takes courage, which is often irrational, to enter that room. And to have the door close behind you.
You’re now alone. In utter blackness. Not sure where to go. Not sure what to do.
No one is comfortable in a situation like that. It’s unpleasant at best, and often terrifying.
So what do you do then?
You search for sources of light to illuminate the dark room. Sources of light that will allow you to navigate your way around the room. That will allow you to be successful in the room so that you’re not operating in the dark.
Those
