[Ecommerce] Massive Product Sales Success and Lessons Learned, with Farbod Deylamian and Kyle Lewis, Founders of Sriracha2Go.com

Farbod Deylamian and Kyle Lewis are cofounders of Sriracha2Go, a company catering to the needs of Sriracha fans worldwide. they make keychain togo bottles so you can carry your srircha sauce with you everywhere. They sold through their initial order of 20K units in 2 weeks and they sold over 10k 3 packs on groupon in a week and received investment from Mark Cuban’s investment company.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [0:35] Jeremy’s introduction of his guest, Farbod and Kyle.
• [1:38] Farbod’s “rap” stage when he dominated the scene.
• [3:24] Kyle’s slicked-back hair as a kid.
• [4:46] How Kyle and Farbod meet in San Francisco.
• [5:59] Lessons learned working at a startup.
• [8:10] Commitments they made to do some things differently in their company.
• [11:05] Business culture lessons.
• [17:07] Coming up with innovative ideas to spread the word about their product.
• [18:02] What led up to their product idea?
• [22:36] Advice they received as they were starting their business.
• [25:41] Mistakes made in manufacturing and lessons they learned from them.
• [29:45] The hardest step before launch.
• [36:00] A 2 stage launch plan.
• [43:04] Infrastructure choices: shopping carts, shipment handling, etc.
• [48:10] The Buzzfeed incident and how it skyrocketed product sales.
• [53:56] Finding a connection to a new manufacturer that changed everything.
• [55:29] Packing and shipping the first massive orders by hand and with friends.
• [58:59] The buzz about their product after the Buzzfeed article.
• [1:03:00] The impact of Twitter on their product awareness.
• [1:05:05] Huy Fong Foods reaches out to the guys and they quit their jobs.
• [1:09:06] The course of the licensing conversation: the legal part and the business part.
• [1:15:30] Getting sriracha sauce into every person’s hands.
• [1:16:00] Reaching out to Mark Cuban: what they said in the email to get his response.
• [1:20:04] Structuring the deal with Mark Cuban’s organization.
• [1:22:56] The best advice Mark has provided so far.
• [1:24:06] Invaluable advice and help that’s come from Mark’s team.
• [1:25:36] Retail sales are rocking.
• [1:27:30] Finding the right people to get the packaging design right.
• [1:32:43] The online strategy: word of mouth and more.
• [1:36:10] Advice about navigating Amazon as a distribution channel.
• [1:37:45] What’s keeping the guys up at night now?
• [1:41:56] The product development and ideation process the guys use.
• [1:44:55] The lowest and proudest moments the guys have experienced in their business journey.

In this episode…

What’s the craziest roller coaster you’ve ever ridden?

Whether you’re a fan of roller coasters or not, you’ll get the comparison when you listen to his episode. That’s because the entrepreneurial journey has been likened to a roller coaster, and in this episode you’re going to hear exactly how true that has been for two ordinary guys who didn’t know what they were getting into.

Farbod Deylamian and Kyle Lewis are the founders of a product based company, Sriracha2Go, a miniature, refillable Sriracha dispenser that has rocked the retail world. Their journey begins in the form of a running joke between the two of them that morphed into a product idea. As they pursued the idea, iterated, took another step, then tweaked things a bit more, they finally reached the top of the first big hill and the company has rocketed around the track ever since.

In this conversation you’re going to hear their very honest and open answers to Jeremy’s questions regarding how their business started, how the product idea came about, the things they’ve done to move it forward, and the unexpected blessings and hurdles that have come all along the way. Those include running out of product in a matter of days after launch, getting their product licensed by the world’s largest sriracha distributor, sending an investment pitch email to Mark Cuban and getting a response within 2 hours, and much, much more.

These two guys have been on the ride of their lives and both feel that there’s still a lot more ahead. Listen in to get the details on their product development, how they chose their software solutions for ecommerce, email, shipping and fulfillment, and lots of other practical, actionable tips. Once you hear this chat, you’ll glad you listened to this episode of Inspired Insider.

Resources Mentioned on this episode

• www.Siracha2Go.com - find them on all social media as well.
• www.Skubana.com - Ecommerce platform
• http://www.extol.com/ - the startup where Farbod and Kyle met.
• www.Oracle.com
• www.Shopify.com
• www.BigCommerce.com
• www.Volusian.com
• www.WooCommerce.com
• http://goshippo.com/fresh/
• www.MailChimp.com
• www.Slack.com
• www.Asana.com
• Google Analytics
• Amazon
• www.BuzzFeed.com
• Huy Fong Foods
• Shark Tank
• Mark Cuban
• Inc. Magazine Article
• www.MarkCubanCompanies.com