ALERT! The Heat is On with Sufia Hossain

Hi, Sofia, welcome to Essential Ingredients. I'm Justine Reichman, your host. I want to welcome our listeners and Sufia Hossain, our guest today. Welcome, Sufia.

Thank you so much, Justine. I'm so excited to be here.

Me too. I know it took us a little while to organize, but I think our listeners are very excited to get to know you as I'm excited to learn more about you and Silly Chilly Hot Sauce. I know we're just about to tell me a little while ago that you weren't artists, which I did not know. But I did remark that I love your painting behind you. Can you tell us before we get there a little bit more about this painting behind you? Which by the way, we do have listeners on the podcast that cannot see this, so we need a little bit more explicit about it so that they can get a visual for us.

Sure. Behind the doors, a lot of people don't even know I'm an abstract artist. I do oil painting. I recently started working with acrylic. Yeah, behind the closet, unless you come to my apartment, you would never know that I paint. So yeah, this is something, one way of me having a therapy session with myself. It really gives me an opportunity to be lost in thoughts, and it's like an artistic moment.

Where do you do your painting?

I do it at home. I painted at home. My home is like basically a walking lab at a studio, and yeah, everything goes down in my home.

I got to share something with you to our listeners. I too am an artist abstract, and I do acrylic paint too. I just started a few years ago, I do it in my garage. I would love to see your painting, so I will definitely share some with you. I don't have any here at the moment, but I will share some with you. But I want to get back to you so our listeners can learn more about you and Silly Chilly Hot Sauce. I'm excited that some of the people watching the video can see this painting for others. Just knowing that you're an artist, I think maybe can give us a sense behind the colors that you choose on all your labels. We could talk about the branding and all that stuff later. But I just want to take a minute for you to introduce yourself a little bit so our listeners can learn a little bit more about you and what inspired you to create Silly Chilly Hot Sauce.

Hi everyone, I'm Sufia Hossain, and I launched Silly Chilly Hot Sauce. Well, I shouldn't say launched, because it wasn't really like an official way to launch it. It was more like, oh, let me make some sauce for a Christmas gift and then create this fake kind of label. At that time, I had no idea, it was four years ago, that I would be running a hot sauce business full time.

Are you an accidental entrepreneur?

I am. I'm gonna use that. I am an entrepreneur because I haven't been trained on. I never thought of running my own business, to be honest. So a little bit of my background, I went to FIT, Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan, New York. And it was my last job before I quit. It was with GAP in merchandising, and I never worked in a restaurant. I love to eat, but I did not have any influence. Well, besides the eating part, I did not grow up liking cooking or making something. My mom never led me in the kitchen. I will shamelessly admit it. However, during the weekends, I used to go to the Farmers Market in Union Square, and I would pick up peppers because they used to talk to me. It also relates to my life, my paintings and everything around me, just colorful. Like a lot of colors are there, like yellow, red, green. And I will pick them up like, let's say a pound or a couple of pounds. And by the time I get home, oh, my god, I have so many hot peppers. What do I do with them? So yeah, then I was YouTubing how to make sauce. And then it was so bad for three months. Like, it was disgusting, to be honest. And like pouring down the drain, like making it like, oh, my god, it's so bad. So anyway, something like, I just stumbled upon my passion. But I was enjoying that process. I did not get tired. I was just enjoying that. Like, I could not wait like, okay, Friday, Saturday, I'm going to the Farmers Market. I just waited for that weekend to come and then try it all over again. As I was doing that, at some point, one of my colleagues at GAP, she goes like, oh, I will pay for a jar. Because I was giving her all these free samples for fun. And I was like, what? You're gonna pay me?

That's the best compliment. Somebody wants to pay you for your product. That's the proof.

Good thing is, in my entire life, I never sold anything, like something that I made. And I never sold anything to anyone, so I can never forget that day, and that feeling I had in my heart. Because I always had a job, and then I got paid for my skills and my time. But I never made anything and sold it to someone. So I was inspired by that. That first $6 I made. And yeah, it started from there. Yeah, I did not stop.

That's amazing. And it's funny, because I love when I hear stories like that. Because I remember when I first, I used to sell lemonade when I was a little girl. Sell lemonade as a little girl at some point, I mean, I did. I don't know if you did. But my mom used to go by the, what was it? The Country Time Lemonade. Do you remember that stuff? There's all sugar in that. Pink Country Time Lemonade, and then Yellow Country Time Lemonade. And then I'd have to get the lemons. I don't know, somehow it didn't work out. I mean, I think it cost her more for me to make than I would make selling it. But I sold it for a quarter for a little dixie cup worth of lemonade. And financially, to continue to do this, but it was fun. And then when I start as an entrepreneur, one of the things that I do is work with an accelerator called the Founders Institute. And some of the founders that come through, one of the things we do is we have them go out and see what people think of their product, what they pay for it in the marketplace. Other people are just your friends and your family.

Yes.

Because my family would buy anything, I'm going to sell them. They think it's wonderful. They think it's the best thing.

My mom is not like that at all, quite the opposite.

Oh, your parents won't?

No. My family is extremely the opposite. Only probably like my aunt bought it. But everyone else, they mocked me. They're like, what are you doing? Are you crazy? Like, they never supported me? Because, yeah, there was a lot of mental fighting and fighting with myself, and then kind of trying to fight outside the world.

Of course, we have two different sets of experiences. Your experience is very different from mine. Because if I was to go take this to my parents, my mother would buy like three. Or actually, she'd want them all for free. But she'd be happy to buy them. She likes to just send me some, just send me some. But the point is that we always tell people to go get outside people. Go find 20 people you don't know that are unbiased, that won't say, no, because they like you. Or because they're your family and won't say yes, because they're your family. So that's the best indicator, is what we always say. It's so rewarding to be able to take your sauce in there and get the first person to buy it. You ever go to the dry cleaners and they have their first 20 on the--

Yeah. I still have a photo of her holding my jar.

Same idea. It's the same. So when you first did that, so when you first sold that first jar, what were you thinking in your head? Where were you thinking where you're going with this next?

Yeah. Well, still at that time, I absolutely did not have any plan nor any business plan. Nothing that I would be going into a food world because I have no training there. So when I was making a lot, just so organically, I was just falling like, oh, I'm actually enjoying this, okay. And then I had this stubbornness like, okay, I'll get you the recipe. It wasn't delicious. I was like, oh, I'll get you one day. That type of stubbornness. And then I had a bunch of likes, every single weekend, when someone makes something. Come on, like, at some point, I had jars after jars, so hot sauces, and I was like, oh, my god, I need to get rid of them. Then someone told me, oh, you should try to sell it in the Farmers Market. Then I applied for a bunch of Farmers Market. Everyone rejected me because I had like, it's like a not a known brand. Nothing but one person, he was doing a flea market out of a garage. And he goes like, okay, give me $50, give me actually $100 for two days, show up and sell your stuff. And that's all that's it.

I'm sorry, so garage in Brooklyn. So is this like an apartment, like an open garage?

Sorry, not a garage, open parking lot.

A parking lot. Where in Brooklyn is this?

I believe it was a four green or something?

Like the vintage flea market or something?

No, no, it's not. It was like open rent on the weekends from the owner, open like a parking lot. It's not that big, but it has graffiti and stuff. Little bit of an artistic vibe. Yeah, a bunch of vendors were there.

Did you sell out?

So the first day, I showed up at 8:00 AM, I believe. And it was raining, and I could not set up. Yeah, it was like, I was so shy. I was like, sitting behind the table, and I never sold anything. So I was like, so shy. People were just coming, trying to test. And I had some samples for testing. I was just observing them, but I wasn't really, I was a shy person. It was very hard for me to like creating something, founding something is one thing, and then going out there and trying to sell is a completely different thing. I did not sell out, but I sold good enough.

What did you do to do, get in front of the table, and did you get a little bit more chatty?

The first weekend, most of my co-workers in GAP showed up?

That's nice.

Yeah, to show support, a few friends. And then that was fun because I knew them. To talk to strangers, it took me some time to get to that level by watching other entrepreneurs, other people selling their product. So yeah, it took me a while. I was not there at first.

I think it's a skill. It's a learned skill to get comfortable to get out of that comfort zone too. It's not natural.

No, it's nerve racking if you really think about it. I have been in corporate, started very young in corporate. Like my comfort zone was the meetings, then people I knew, and then their suppliers, like completely out there, out in the open. It took me a while. And something I learned from that experience is like, but I'm like a pro added right now. I have zero shame. I can go in front of anyone, everyone, and sell it.

Like change. Tell me, how did you go from zero to 100? And how did you get there?

In the first few months, it was a lot like watching my other entrepreneurs. The vendors next to me, they're encouraging me like, you can talk about this. Because I used to just go there, set up my table and sit on my chair like, oh, okay. So uncomfortable. Then what changed is it changed with time. It was with time, training and being, we have done so far over thousands events so far. We did so many events person, in person, demos, trade shows. So it's just like, now it's just so natural. I was like, oh, wow, I can be myself. And also just talk to people. Now, it says super natural to me. Like it's not even pretending. It's not even trying hard. It's just natural to me. I really enjoy that part now, like talking to people.

Was there something that changed for you? Was there a moment in time that all the sudden you realize, okay, I got this.

Yes, I would say that. As I was doing a bunch of markets, one after another, the feedback from customers was phenomenal. That was the biggest encouragement to quit my job. And like one of the biggest encouragement to quit my job and pursue this. I would say like 10 out of 10 customers, face to face. Or even if they didn't buy right away, but they would taste all my recipes, oh, wow, you made this like this. It tastes so fresh. We can taste all the ingredients that you put is so fresh, nothing like other hot sauces. So those comments really pumped me up, kind of like, all right, yes. I got comfortable with that type of environment, and so many good positive feedback.

What would you say? What would you recommend to other founders as they're going through this process? Uncomfortable as they start to get out there.

I would say, when you start, if you're uncomfortable, you're uncomfortable. Don't beat yourself up. And then as you go, it's a journey. Enjoy this, it's a journey one may be uncomfortable with. Second one is like, okay, let me talk to five people, at least let me talk with 10. Engaging with people like you don't feel like this, this is just me. You can't be a professional overnight with anything. So definitely, push for it, but don't give yourself a break and then go.

I'm just gonna take a pause for a minute, we're gonna have a little announcement from our sponsor. I want to welcome everyone back. Well, we took that pause from our sponsors. Welcome everyone back. Welcome back Sufia. Sufia, sorry about that. I'm loving all these nuggets that you're sharing with us. I hope that our founders that are listening are writing these down, or just taking it all in because it's so great. I feel like I'm on this journey with you as you're sharing it with us. And I think that that's a great way for anyone to take in some of this information because it allows me to feel like we're right there together. And as I could remember myself the first time, I was asked to do a speaking engagement at Pace University in New York. And I was this girl in school that would never raise their hand. I would never speak up in class because I always thought I was wrong. I didn't want to speak up. And when Pace University called and said: "Can you speak to this class that we have?" I was like, of course. It was an organization. And all of a sudden, after I said yes, I was like, oh, my god, I don't like to speak in front of people. I'd just speak in front of people. So I had to find a coach to teach me how to speak in front of people so that I don't get too long winded for both our listeners and for you and put everyone to sleep. Nuts and bolts of the story was that this coach taught me how to create some notes so that I could connect with the audience. Not have sentences written out, to be able to make sure that I hit my points and be able to engage the audience. You're all prepared. I go down to Pace University, there's about 100 people in the room. I'm so nervous, my palms are sweaty, I'm a little nauseated. And I get there, and there's a podium. Now, none of our listeners know this, you don't know this, because I am. For those watching this, I'm only five foot one. And for those listening, I'm five foot one, even if I'm wearing heels. Because of course, I'm in New York so I probably have three inch heels on that makes me five foot four on a good day. Which means that I can see above this podium, which is a really big problem because there's no step for this podium. So where am I supposed to put my notes? So I had to abandon the notes, abandon the podium. And now, I had to go without anything. So here I am, supposed to give this talk and I can't have my notes. I'm already nervous. So what I did, the biggest takeaway that I got from her was asked the audience questions. I asked the audience questions, and that hour went by like hotcakes. And it was engaging, and it was fun. And it was participatory, and it allowed me to communicate what I was doing, but also allowed them to participate. And it was not as scary as I thought, it was so much better. So I share that while you were sharing yours, because that was how I got through mine. I was terrified.

Thank you for sharing that, Justine. You know what? That reminded me of one skill that I use every single meeting, every single event. Basically, I compliment someone, and I'm big on complimenting. That's my thing.

Today, when you told me like my--

I have to start with a positive compliment. Like, your t-shirt looks super nice. Like, you know what you're getting from? It's nothing fake. I'm a very genuine person, but I think that that reminded me of what I do, actually. Few of my friends pointed out to me that because that's why it became so natural. Engaging with people, start with their common interest. Like if they have a bag, or they're walking with a dog, they're also cute. Or they're walking with a book or whatever, you can always pick up something that you can talk about with someone and always start with, say a compliment because that can lift up someone's day. It doesn't matter who that is. Your neighbor, yeah.

Yeah, I would agree. I just wanted to share that story with you folks because I think that, while it really resonated for me, when you were talking about that, because I too was shy, I too didn't want to raise my hand when I was in class. I was visualizing the part behind you and thinking you are uncomfortable, it was probably not really approachable for people to come up to you because you felt uncomfortable, because we know when other people feel uncomfortable. So I felt the same way when I was going to give my speech. So yeah, but I do want to talk more about Silly Chilly Hot Sauce. I want to learn a little bit more about what your big vision was, and what you are trying to have as an impact within the future of food. So if you could share a little bit more with us about that.

Until now, in this story, it's like I'm just doing this to get rid of my extra inventory. Then what made me quit my professional job that was paying my bills, everything, and go jump into this path that 's like jumping from a cliff with my eyes closed and hoping that I would fall on my feet. You know what I mean? So what I noticed is like, as I was going to the Farmers Market and talking to the farmers, and next to them for like half hour, 40 minutes, or an hour, just hanging out with them. And then they used to share a lot of stories with me, like the stuff they're going through, crops getting bad, or the weather issue, labor issues, so many things. I was like, oh, wow, I never really thought about this way. Because I live in the city. We go to the supermarket, we find everything we need and we come back.We're gonna thought about that logistic side, like, who is growing my food? Who is transporting or truck driver? Who was selling? All these things. I never really thought about it. But that kind of made me that engagement with the farmers who are working in the farms. It kind of led me to thinking, oh, okay, okay. Yeah, wow, you guys go through so much. And I complain about being inside an office, really nice views. If it's raining outside, I'm not getting rained out, but I'm still complaining from inside. So it's just this realization. And then as I was going deeper, deeper. And then at some point, I just start doing research, like the farmers, how much suffering they're doing? All over the world, it's not only in the US, all over the world, that amount of like they don't get paid enough. So many things are going on right now. And then I was like, okay, how can I help them through a project? How can I help them first? That was my first thing, how can I help them? It was like, okay, first, I can just buy from them. Then I was like, how can I help them in a bigger way? So that's when I was like, wait, I can make something and package it. I buy directly from them and package it, and I sell it to the consumer. And looks like the consumers that I've been meeting every single weekend, strange people, they're like loving my recipes. So that was like, boom. Ah, yeah, that was like, okay. So from now, I kind of started doing all the work that needed to get done. And then I started thinking about, yeah, this is what I want to do, that Silly Chilly Hot Sauce, and then started working on the label, all that good stuff. Really started researching commercial business. Yeah, commercial business.

Right. That's exciting. And so what are your plans now for the future? How are you dealing with the standards of the clean label while keeping it, accomplishing a shelf stable and authentic flavors of the Silly Chilly?

Yeah. I just want to say, clean labels are so easy to do. Basically, you're going back to basics. It's not that hard. It's like ingredients from the art, direct from the farm, wash it, cut it, cook it, and then serve it to the human. It shouldn't be that hard. For my product, I use organic apple cider vinegar, salt. And the amount of time I cook, you'd like to be self stable for many years. And the way we bottle it, I would say, hey, eating clean. It's not hard, we just make it hard because there's so much crap outside out there. I think it makes me upset, like, it shouldn't be that, it really should be so simple.

I agree. I think the challenge is when you leave your home, and when you go outside to the market and you buy packaged goods, because some of the packaged goods and the consumer product goods really do too much stuff in it that we just don't need.

No, no, that's the part I don't get. Companies like Goya, like other bigger companies. You guys are big, you guys can come up with innovation, or you have your own facility of production, you can produce night and day. So come up with something that it can be shelf stable without all the stuff they're using. You know what I mean? They have that funding to, like do that for consumers.

I would agree. I would agree. So is there a CPG hot sauce? Is CPG hot sauce a viable market? What's the market like today for the CPG hot sauce?

So it's actually, really, I don't know if you notice. I mean, I'm going to start with a spicy level, like every single food chain adding a spicy version of sandwich, every single one. You hear about McDonald's, Wendy's, so the American consumers, their palate has been changing, like they're craving for spicy stuff. So with that, the hot sauce market has been increasing. So there's a lot of growth in this market. And the people love spicy stuff. Not only that, the people cook with it. And USA is like a melting pot, especially New York City. California is a melting pot for so many cultures, the whole world. So yeah, yeah.

You think there's a lot of growth opportunities here? What do you think some of the challenges are for people in this space right now?

In terms of challenges? So the customer, if you think about it like, okay, how do I get a customer? Like the customer acquisition, the cost of it is very high. It's like, if I'm talking about an entrepreneur, entrepreneur as like, unless you have a lot of more money, it's really hard because there's so much competition, hundreds and thousands of brands, good brands, local international brands trying to get shelf space. So those are the main struggles right now. Because the way things were, 20 years ago, it's not like that right now. 20 years ago, we didn't have all these brands, we didn't have all these options. So the customer cost of customer acquisition has gone up a lot. So that is the most challenging part. How do I sell, continue to sell my product and profit?

Can you share three to five tips for a better for you food entrepreneur, perhaps from a marketing perspective for some of the founders that we have listening?

Yeah, so one thing that I'm just going to share from my own personal--

That's perfect, that's exactly what we want.

Before anything, I do want to share, I'm a bootstrap founder. I'll be raising capital soon. But so far, I've been funding on my own from the business, because I wanted to make sure that my concept will work before I take on anyone's capital. And now, I'm like 200% sure it's gonna work. I'm much more wiser now because I have to learn. A few tips would, what worked for me is building and nurturing relationships. And I never saw, since day one till now, I never saw anything or anyone transactional way. How should I say that? For me, everyone is human. Humans come first. Humans come first, and then everything else. So with that mind, you just didn't have great energy, you're doing great stuff. And I'm attracted to that. Whether you invited me to a podcast, it doesn't matter, but I support what you're doing, and I want to maintain that. That's how I've been building my relationship with people. And that got me to where I am right now because when you build a brand, you need a village, you have to hire a village. But I can get a lot of stuff done, and it is the favors I have done for people without thinking though, I'm going to get something back. It's not like that. Selflessly, I have done stuff and it came back, always came back. And so that one thing is focusing on building and nurturing relationships. Another thing would be solving problems. Because right now, we humans have created so many problems. I feel like a new innovation. So much innovation going on right now, so I feel like we need to just pause, step back and go back to basics. Let's go back to basics and be like, okay, how can we, instead of like, oh, my God, oh, my God, but how can we pause and kind of really understand what we are doing? Like, every single thing we do, it impacts our neighbors, not only ourselves, our neighbors, our family, friends, the earth just spreads. So being mindful about whatever your project is, whatever your food item is. And that would be my, my two cents is like create something that would be wholesome for the human body and the earth.

Yeah. I love that. I love that because part of the mission of Essential Ingredients and for NextGenChef is to build a better food system or support access to information so that end consumer businesses can make more informed choices to have greater access to healthy food. I mean, you are exactly who we're hoping to bring in here to be able to, your recipe for what you're building.

Yeah, totally. Yeah. And another thing I want to share is, I have been so deeply passionate about agriculture since I started my journey with this. Hot sauce is just like an item to me, but it's the fact that I'm super passionate about learning agriculture, all of that. Because based on the research right now, I believe we only have 59 or 58 years of harvest season left on this earth. So I just want to encourage everyone to be mindful about whatever they're creating and packaging. However, they're packaging, I'm also not there the way I want to be with my packaging, sustainable packaging and good for the earth. I'm not there. It requires, you know, some sort of funding and capital to pursue that route. I just want to throw it out there. Like if you can be mindful about your packaging as well. Whatever you're doing.

Yeah. I love your story. I love everything that you're working on. I think that your story is really inspirational and aspirational, and your mission is just nothing short of something that I think would inspire any number of people that are building a better for you food business from soil to shelf, from agriculture to getting it into a sustainable bottle and packaged. So you've got the whole thing down. Now, all we need to do is share those resources. But maybe we could do that on another day. But before we do close out, I would love for everybody to know how they might be able to find Silly Chilly Hot Sauce. Before we close out, I'm just curious, how did you come up with the name?

Oh, I'm a very silly person. I have made a lot of jokes all the time. Even if I'm dying in the corner, I'll be making some sort of humor, like laughing or giggling. So basically, one of my friends used to call me, oh, silly, because I would make silly jokes all the time. And then it just started from there. When I was trying to come up with a name for my sauce, I was like, cool, what I'm gonna call chilly, silly. Like, no, actually silly chilly. So very organic, I did not hire any marketing agency, any of the stuff, it's just my personality kind of out there.

I like it. I like it. Well, just as you were saying, and as we were talking about it, it just dawned on me, I was not sure how you had come up with it. It's part of the story. And to your point, it's organic, just like the rest of the business, just like everything you've built, so I love that. So we've been in this pandemic for now, almost what? A year? And you've been building your business. I'm sure COVID has had an impact and we haven't even touched on that, so there's so much we can talk about. But we'd love to just hear, do you have a pandemic recipe that you've been using that you can share with us? Like a recipe, something that you've made with it that you love that you've been finding yourself using these your sauces with?

Oh, my god. Oh, my god. So I've been cooking home. I've been cooking every other day, and whoa, I have gotten better. Like first time in my life would like making food. I'm like, oh, wow. And I've been cooking with my, I do cook with my thoughts all the time. Like my mango sauce chili pepper, and mango is not spicy. It goes on with salad chicken. And I do like few days out of a week of vegan. I go vegetarian and plant based. And then I saute my veggies with my [inaudible] which actually won the first prize a few months ago.

Was that the Good Food Awards.

Yeah, it's something in New York, and it's been sold out since then. I mean, it's a crazy thing. Yeah, it's crazy how our e-commerce has gone out a lot. And the [inaudible] goes with pretty much as I call it pick me up. I'm like, I don't want to drink coffee in the middle of the day. I like to add it to my rice or pasta. Yeah. My sauces are so flavorful and thick. It's so much I do with it, so much.

Yeah. Where could our listeners find your sauce?

You can find us on Instagram, Facebook. It's called Silly Chilly Hot Sauce, S-I-L-L-Y-C-H-I-L-L-Y-H-O-T-S-A-U-C-E. And our website is www.sillychillyhotsauce.com. We are on Amazon for retail. We're on Amazon. And nowadays, everyone orders.

But most importantly, for those listeners that have listened to this whole podcast, is there a special that they can access?

Yes, yes. So I'm giving away this code, it's 20% off only for your listeners. For your listeners. So the code is NextGenChef, N-E-X-T-G-E-N-C-H-E-F, and you'll get 20% off.

Thank you, Sufia, that is so sweet. So Sufia, thank you so much for joining us today. It was great to learn more about you, about your artwork, about, really, hot sauce and much more. And I want to thank our listeners for joining us. And if you like this episode and you want to hear more and hear about all these new inspirational founders and thought leaders changing the future of food, don't forget to download Essential Ingredients with Justine. It's on all the channels, from iTunes, to iHeartRadio, to Spotify. So don't forget to download and subscribe. We are here every week, Tuesday, with a new episode that comes on at 6:00 AM. And if you're listening to this and you're not a member of NextGenChef, please do download the NextGenChef app. We have it for iOS and Android. It is a complimentary app where you can connect with thought leaders like Sufia and other founders in the industry. Each one of the podcasts are available there and you can connect with the guests as well as other people in the industry. You can check out old conversations. You can connect with other community members via text and email. It's a great way to connect with people in the food business that are building better for you food businesses. Again, it's the NextGenChef app. And it's complimentary for those listening to this app right now. So I hope you guys will join us next week for our next podcast. And I hope to see you on the NextGenChef app. And if you do come to the app, please look me up, send me a note, let me know what you want to hear from, what you want to talk to us about. Thank you again, Sufia, for joining us.

Thank you so much.