Shirt stains are a sure way to ruin any busy individual’s day! A perfectly crisp and clean shirt ruined by your sandwich sauce in the morning can be a nightmare. Finding a solution to this problem, Emily Williams and Cole Williams started their company, Slice of Sauce, where they transform traditionally bottled condiments into slices—perfect for that mess-free sandwich, burgers, and wraps on the go! In this episode, they sit down with Elliot Begoun to share the beginning of this genius idea and the process of bringing it to the market and the consumers, most especially for a product that has never been done before. Fresh from Shark Tank, Emily and Cole then take us behind the scenes of landing that gig and the lessons they learned about how to talk about your business effectively. They then let us in on the post-deal negotiation conversation process and how they are moving their business from that amazing experience.

—

Listen to the podcast here

How To Bring A Unique Business To The Market With Emily And Cole Williams Of Slice Of Sauce

I have super cool guests here. Absolutely one of the killer couples in this space. Fresh off their epic episode of Shark Tank. I’m going to embarrass them which is great fun for me. Welcome, Emily and Cole Williams of Slice Of Sauce. Thank you so much for being here. Take a minute to introduce yourselves and tell a little bit about Slice of Sauce.

Thank you, Elliot, for hosting us. This is a lot of fun and it’s a nice and warm place to tell this story. Thank you for offering that warm, welcoming space. My name is Emily Williams and I am the CEO and Cofounder of Slice of Sauce. Slice of Sauce transforms traditionally bottled condiments like ketchup, sriracha, barbecue sauce, hot sauce, and more into slices. They are mess-free slices intended for sandwiches, burgers and wraps, perfect on the go. A delicious convenient solution to supercharge sandwiches. The idea started in our home kitchen. I was tinkering with my dad’s barbecue sauce recipe. He used to own a restaurant when I was a child. The recipe called for a bunch of veggies that you raise and then throw away. I thought I could repurpose them. I round them up. I put them in the dehydrator and instead of what I thought was going to be a spice rub, I got a sheet of barbecue sauce. Thinking my experiment had failed, I went to throw it in the trash, but Cole here used to be a chef. He took one look at it and he said, “That’s gold.” He tried it on a burger and surely it’s delicious. Those were the beginnings of what we know as a Slice of Sauce now.

Before we jump into Shark Tank and everybody’s conversation, I’m glad you think this was a warm, safe space. I also think it’s important to talk about this journey thus far. It’s not been easy creating this product. Starting something that isn’t out there has left you with some unique challenges like finding the right kind of co-packer, being able to explain to people what the hell this is, and how the hell they use it. What have been some of those lessons? Both the aggravating moments and invigorating ones.

In 2018, we launched a Kickstarter campaign to introduce the world to Slice of Sauce. Within a few days, it went viral. The polarity of the product brought lovers. People were saying, “Why isn’t this thing a thing already?” Also, total haters who said, “This is an abomination. I will disown any friend who uses the crusty part of your ketchup bottle as a slice.” The biggest challenge is trying to communicate to the consumer what the value proposition is within the slice, and making the transition from comparing it to the comparison, to a traditional bottle versus the slice and what that brings. Beyond that, finding a co-packer to create and bring a product to market that has never been done before was challenging. We made this in commercial kitchens ourselves working in small dehydration capacity. What we knew based on the interest that we’ve had from either consumers pre-orders and from retailers is that we needed to find somebody that could bring this product to scale. That’s been an enormous challenge.

It’s taken us about 2.5 years to develop it and get it through that. The good news is that we’ve now become experts in this field of slice manufacturing. We have had the opportunity to learn an enormous about our process and the whole landscape of co-packers and co-manufacturers. At the same time, we’re doing all of this within a pandemic. We had to shift our strategy from launching into retail at the beginning of 2020. We got pushed out of that reset because of what was happening with COVID. We shifted from a retail launch into a direct consumer launch. We’re focusing heavily online. Overcoming all of these hurdles all at once has been a challenge, but being a small and nimble team and having amazing people and community like TIG and the Tardigrades around, we’ve been able to lean on the shoulders of a lot of generous and experienced individuals to get us through this.  

It’s a great story and I’ve said this to you both many times and I’ll say it to everybody reading. Sometimes it’s hard to slow down during all of the things when all the wind is blowing in your face and you’re finding it difficult to realize what an amazingly cool journey this is. It isn’t always going to be about the destination. It’s going to be looking back as entrepreneurs, as an entrepreneurial couple about what this was like, and what this journey was like. You’ve had some amazing moments. The one we want to delve into and talk about is Shark Tank. I still remember that holy shit phone call of, “We’re going to be on Shark Tank.” How did it all start? Tell us a little bit about it, and then we’ll get into some of the details.

In 2018, when we launched our Kickstarter campaign and it did in fact go viral, we were getting inbound requests for media nonstop. This is my first foray into any public-facing brand. I had been a buyer and in sales and management for a collection of retail stores, but definitely a small setup compared to what I was experiencing with all of these. The Today Show was reaching out and Time magazine was reaching out and I was overwhelmed. The phone rang and it was Shark Tank and I didn’t think it was real. I thought it was a joke. I hung up the phone and they called back. They said, “This is the executive producer of Shark Tank. We’d love to have a conversation about what it might look like to highlight Slice of Sauce.” Right away, I knew we were far too early. We weren’t ready. I was overwhelmed. I didn’t know at that moment if it was the right platform for us.

After listening to the producer for about a 45-minute of conversation, he explained what Shark Tank is offering and looking to do for up and coming entrepreneurs, startups, and ideas. That’s to highlight excellent and extraordinary entrepreneurs. If you distill it all down to that, what better way to use that platform and show the world who you are. They also want to make great TV. It took me a minute to understand some of those moving parts. When I say a minute, I guess it took me almost two years to come around to the idea. That was 2018. We finally agreed in March 2020 to finally go through with the application process knowing that we understand who we are as a brand. We understand who we are as founders much better than we did in 2018. We felt like we were finally ready.

From 2018 to March of 2020, where they continuing to reach out to you? Are they continuing to pursue you? What was the dialogue? Was it like you went dark and then you re-engaged?  

Even in 2018, we began the application process. They said, “Just start filling out some of the paperwork,” and then they send the paperwork. It’s 100 pages of paperwork. We started the process and they said to us at the beginning, “If it’s not right, you can pull out any time. If you pull out, it doesn’t mean that you’re out of the running. It just means that we might see the other slice condiment company to participate in Shark Tank this season or next season.” One of the things they tell you from the beginning is there are no guarantees all the way through. There’s no guarantee that your episode will get picked. There’s no guarantee your episode will air. We filled out the paperwork, and then in June or maybe May of 2018, we said, “This year is not the right year, let’s circle back next year.” They did follow up in 2019. Again, we went through the whole litany, refilled out all of the application process, and then came to set up our time to film. We said, “We’re still not ready,” and they said, “Okay, fine. We’ll call you back next year.” They did and so we got a little bit further with each step of the process. Finally, in 2020 we said, “Let’s do it. We’re doing it.”  

Now you’ve made the decision to do it. What goes down? What happens?  

The preparation involved in even just filling out the application, but then once you get connected to your producers and your set design, and you start walking through what you want your brand and what you want to look like in front of five million people. It’s very reflective. It was an exercise in growth for the two of us to figure out what pieces of our business we need help talking about, what pieces of our business are rock solid? We went through an accelerator called Techstars. One of the pillars of that program is learning how to talk effectively about your business. We thought we had a handle on it, but until you talk about your business in front of five million people, that’s an entirely new exercise in learning about your business. The months leading up were not only about filling out paperwork and understanding the legal implications of what we were about to do but also understanding our business on an even deeper level, which I am so grateful for. As Cole said, even when they say there are no guarantees that your episode will air, or that you’ll make a deal, or that you don’t get any publicity at all from it, even just that exercise of peeling back the layers of our business again in a different way was so helpful.  

Cole, one of the questions we’re getting is, did they provide coaching on things like set design and pitch or anything along those lines? What support did you get as you prepared?  

They do. Right away, you get connected to a producing team. There are two individuals, I believe it’s always two individual teams that you work with to craft your pitch and to talk about your set design. They help you along the way with those types of things. They don’t do practice sessions with you. At least with our team, we only did 1 or 2 practice sessions. They help you craft the framework to make sure that you stay somewhat within the lines. I think every company is different. We spent a lot of time preparing so we knew our pitch well. We knew our business well. We had practiced hundreds of hours of mock Shark Tank questions so we were well prepared. There are other companies that might go in a little less prepared and you see them in episodes where they’re a little all over the place. They might have a little more hand-holding, but it was good guidance.  

Now you’re getting ready. You’re preparing and all of that stuff is starting to happen. Let’s talk about the actual experience. What was that like? The good, the bad, the frightening, the cool, whatever.  

2020 was very unique in that it was all happening during COVID.

There are a lot of things behind the scenes that we’re not supposed to talk about.  

We can talk about this one because I know Mark Cuban talks about it publicly. I think if we follow Mark Cuban suit, we probably will be doing okay.

Just don’t sue us, ABC.

We were quarantined in Las Vegas for almost two weeks before the show because they were making sure that we were safe and that they were safe. First and foremost, they wanted to create a safe environment. We were quarantined in a hotel room for two weeks. We have been waiting for this moment for months, and so there were a lot of nerves, as you would imagine. My silly worry was all about hair and makeup. They said, “You’re going to have only touch-ups.” I was worried about my hair and makeup. I had a mask on until five seconds before I was pitching. I was worried about the mask.

I know Cole was petrified about the stash.

They have two sets of double doors and you’re standing in front of one set. Cole was schmoozing with the production assistant, talking about cars or something totally irrelevant. I was having a moment where I thought I had lost everything I had planned and prepared for. I said, “Cole, I can’t remember my lines.” He said, “All you have to say is I’m Emily Williams and you’ll be off to the races.” The double doors opened and it’s exactly what you see on television. There’s the long hallway and then the other double doors opened, then it’s one shot. You don’t get a second chance. It’s not like normal television where they do take 2 and take 25. They say, “Entrepreneurs begin,” and that’s it. You go as long as it takes so our pitch took about 45 to 50 minutes total in the Tank.  

Was your heartbeat deafening when you were walking down that hall?

My stomach was upset. I was so nervous. You got to hit this mark that’s the same color as the carpet and you can’t look down at it. You’re like trying not to overstep it and of course, we overstepped it. They’re like, “Back it up,” and then we got back. We’re nervous and there are certain moments of it that are completely blackout. I don’t remember. Watching it back, we’d never seen it. We have no idea. Part of the anxiety also was after you leave the Tank, for the next four months, you’re wondering, “What are they going to create out of that 45, 50 minutes that we were in there?” There are many different avenues they could take. In one of the things we signed said that they can edit this episode however they want to. Your fingers are crossed that they are going to highlight you to look good and your company looks good.

Based on our experience in the Tank, it was a very friendly, welcoming, warm, supportive experience. Everybody was into the idea, the product, and loved the taste of it. We had a good experience, but it’s nerve-wracking. You’ve got all these cameras and lights and you’re talking to these people that you watched on TV a million times. We’ve seen them being lovely and we’ve seen them be Sharks. We thought it’s Kevin O’Leary. Is he going to say to us, “Let’s take this out behind the barn and shoot it, or I’m going to squash it like the cockroaches that you are?” He didn’t. We had an awesome response for both of us and our product so that was exciting.  

One of my biggest surprises was how much I laughed in the Tank. We had a good time.

They’re entertainers.

They’re nice people. They’re fun. They’re friendly. They like to laugh. It was much friendlier than I thought it was going to be. That doesn’t mean that there wasn’t some drama. Barbara and I did head sponsor twice, but overall it was much more fun than I thought it was going to be.  

I remember talking to you soon after and you said, “It was so much fun. We had such a great time.” That’s what it’s ultimately all about. Now you’re there and you’re taping. What happened? First of all, if anyone reading hasn’t watched the episode, watch the episode. It’s great TV. It’s fun. I’m not saying this to be nice. You did a great job. Not only in terms of getting things out there but just being likable which isn’t exactly a big reach for you guys. I thought it was fun TV. No one from ABC is going to read this, so you’re not going to get in trouble for this answer. Before all this went down, were you fans of Shark Tank? Do you watch the show?  

To be completely candid, neither of us had watched the show ever even though we’d already been in consideration to do it for two years. You go to any trade show and you walk down the aisles and you see booths that you have seen on Shark Tank, I always thought of it as a bit of like Scarlet Letter. It’s like, “You’re a Shark Tank brand. That’s all you have?” She didn’t think of that. The producer said to us like, “The value of this eight-minute segment is you’d have to pay millions of dollars to tap it on TV to get that exposure.” I understood that and now we’ve watched it. It’s great. It’s good TV.  

I had seen the Scrub Daddy segment because it’s one of the most heroic segments of all of Shark Tank time. I had always known what it can do for our brand. There are a few similar success stories like Scrub Daddy. We’re cord cutters. We don’t typically watch a lot of network television, and then once we found out that we might appear on Shark Tank, it was almost more terrifying to watch the episode. I couldn’t even turn on an episode without getting the sweaty palms and the nerves, even just the thought of filling out the application. It was not like we were lifelong fans of the show and had always dreamed of being on Shark Tank.

I see a question that popped up in the box about deals getting done on the air that don’t go through.  

Maybe we can get to that when we talk about the aftermath.  

There’s probably going to be some spoilers alerts if you haven’t watched the show. If you haven’t watched, stop now. Go watch and then come back and read the rest of the show. We were fortunate enough to right away get an offer from Kevin. One of his ridiculous royalty deals. Going in, we had parameters set. We knew that we weren’t going to do a royalty deal because it didn’t make sense to take cash out of the business to pay somebody. We knew what our limits were in terms of equity, the percentage that we were willing to or able to give up. We knew what works in order to get offers. If you walk in with a valuation of $100 million in your pre-revenue company, they’re going to laugh at you. All of a sudden, your entire segment is going to be about your valuation. We didn’t want that. We wanted our segment to be about our products, to be about us, to be about this new innovation that we believe solves a problem and delivers flavor in a new form. We knew very quickly like, “Let’s set and ask a valuation that’s realistic.” The valuation we set below our most recent rounds. In some sense it could be seen as a down round, but we wanted to offer a Shark a discount because we wanted partnership.

You almost always have to. There’s a lot of information out there that you can find on the statistics of the Shark Tank deal. There’s a very small range of dollar amounts and valuations that will get the Sharks to nibble that will be palatable in terms of what they want enough so that it’s making an impact on the business. They don’t want to do equity deals of 2% or 3% of the business. It doesn’t make sense for them. The checks have to be significant enough. There are a lot of different checkmarks that you want to look at. We did a lot of homework in terms of those statistics and found our sweet spot. They also do have a business consultant that you can talk to from the show who will help walk you through what valuation you’re thinking about, why you’re thinking about it that way. They’ll never tell you what you should and should not do, but they can tell you the best practices, what people have done in the past. Sometimes they’ll throw out other things that you may not be thinking about. I found that business consultant helpful.  

The value is great to get money, but money aside, the more important thing is to be liked by a Shark or two than to get an offer, whether that offer ever gets consummated with the money. From a PR standpoint, from a brand-building standpoint, from a cache standpoint, that isn’t the relevant piece. You want to be strategic to get that so that you get the most out of the episode, so that you could drive it. Ultimately, this is PR. The one thing I want to make sure we do take time for is the post-airing work. What this looks like after the shit hits the fan because that’s what it’s all about. You get this moment inside, now it’s going to happen.  

The beauty of Shark Tank is that it runs in syndication. You’ll get lots of other airing for smaller crowds but still quite a few. That first initial run of an episode, that’s where it all comes together as I remember talking to you guys, as you were setting up your war room getting ready for this thing. Let’s continue first talking a bit more about the taping and the negotiation process, then maybe a couple of minutes of what you can say about what it was like post-episode negotiation. Let’s spend the time talking more about how do you leverage this PR. That’s the most instructive to everybody reading because Shark Tank, at the end of the day, is a PR vehicle for a brand. There are other vehicles, maybe not as big or well known or not getting five million viewers at once, but a lot of the same core principles, the same things you guys had to think through, be prepared for discussion is going to be just as applicable if you get a good mention from leading impactful influencer or something along those lines. I want to spend some time there, the offers.

The thing about the offers is that you want to negotiate. First of all, you want to spend as much time as you can in the Tank. The longer you’re in there, the more material you are going to have to work with, and that’s good. You want to negotiate. You want to show your skillset of being a founder and being in control of your business and pushing back. You don’t want to butt heads, but you want to be strong and forceful. If you watched the episode, you’ll notice that I didn’t do any of that. Emily did all of that. I just stand there with my hands pressed together, smiling. On the actual day, I don’t remember talking that much. They geared a lot of questions towards Emily. It was, “Emily, this. Emily, let me ask you.” When you’re in there, they’re all firing off questions at the same time. It is a fastball. It is so quick and loud. The offers come and you negotiate and you counter. You do your stuff.

Another thing that’s more fun in the Tank was when Kevin made his initial offer, he was the first one to make an offer. His offer was so funny that we were all laughing. The whole Tank was erupting in laughter because it was a bit absurd. He wasn’t doing it in a malicious way. He was also smiling. That kicked off the negotiations. Alex perked up with an offer. I was surprised at first. We knew he was going to be there. They gave us about a day and a half heads up that there was going to be a guest. We had done our homework. He’s invested in a couple of CPG companies, but we weren’t anticipating that he would make an offer. When he chimed in, I was pleasantly surprised. The more I thought about it, we’ve positioned our product for stadiums and grab and go, and a lot of foodservice options. As soon as I started to think about it, I was like, “That’s brilliant and he’d be an amazing partner.” I was thinking on my feet quite quickly and Mark Cuban chimed in suggesting he might make an offer. Alex said, “If you listen to Mark’s offer, mine may not be there when you come back.” It was the impetus I needed to negotiate quickly. What happened in the Tank was rapid-fire for about 25 seconds and the deal was done before anybody knew that it had even happened.  

One question I had was that you guys did not confer. Did you predecide who is making the call or did you go, “I just got X-ed out of this whole decision?”

I said to Emily, “If we think we’re going to have a thing, we’re going to bump elbows and then we’ll look at each other like we had a whole thing.” None of that happened. Emily was just, boom, boom, deal, deal.

The old finance mindset just took over.

To the point that I didn’t even know that we made the deal. I look at it and they edited this out. Thank God because I looked like a total idiot. I looked at Emily and I said, “Did you just do a deal?” I think it happens fast and we were supposed to concur, but I trust Emily. She’s our CEO our little tiny ship here. It was great. It was a lot of fun.

My favorite moment in the whole episode was at the end, you two walking back through the double doors and the truth that this was not made for TV. This was, at least the way I saw it, not feigned. It was true raw emotive happiness. What was that moment like when you walk back realizing what had happened?  

There was no faking, it was sheer excitement. To be able to walk back with my husband was such a cool moment. That’s one of the highlights that we’ll have for the rest of our lives. No matter what happens, regardless. Those moments are invaluable and awesome. They post in Tank interviews and things like that, where they try and pick apart the process, and ask you a few more detailed questions. They couldn’t calm us down because we were so excited. They had to keep telling us to slow down and speak clearer. They were trying to get the sound right because we were amped. It was awesome.

We went in with an approach of a halo. We want to go into this and we want to look good. We want our business to look good. We want to get offers, and then we made a deal, then that’s the cherry on top. I don’t think we anticipated making a deal beforehand. We were like, “Let’s hope we get an offer,” and then, “I don’t know. Do you think we’ll get a deal?” A part of that excitement was also just a sheer surprise like, “We got a deal.” I swear if you catch it, they bleed me out but I think I say, “Holy fucking shit.” It’s a real excitement.

After that, they send you to talk to a therapist. You sit down with the psychologist or psychiatrist on staff. He talks you through the experience from a mental and physical standpoint of what is happening to your body and the endorphins, and then what’s going to happen in the coming hours. You’re insanely high. A few hours later, you crash and you’re exhausted and confused. That was one of the resources that I wasn’t expecting them to have. There are people that go in there hoping to get a deal, when they don’t get a deal, they’re devastated. We’ve heard stories from production assistance of folks that were sobbing and angry.

No matter what happens in that room though, whether you get offers or you don’t get offers. You’re putting yourself out there in a way that is not normal and it’s stressful, and talk to a lot of anxiety. I think no matter what happens in there, it’s always going to be a physical and emotional toll.  

That’s super impressive. I had no idea that they offered that. It’s appropriate and right. I wish it were a lot more common. I’ve been involved in a lot of meetings, investor meetings, buyer meetings. To be able to have somebody professional to talk through both highs and lows is beneficial. It gives me an interesting idea for another episode.  

The last piece of that, there was an investment fund that we’ve talked to that has a mental health aspect to their portfolio where I can get some stipend because all of this is hard.  

It’s such a roller coaster, the highs are high and the lows are low. It’s a wild ride and then, the real work begins. That’s when the real negotiating, the real diligence, term sheets and all that stuff.  

Let’s delve into two aspects. First of all, I want to step back and say, we don’t talk about this enough but Cole, you said the word vulnerable. It’s hugely vulnerable to do this. It takes huge courage to do this, not just being on Shark Tank, but to be entrepreneurs in general, because you’re bearing your soul. Putting your kid up to be voted as cute or ugly regularly and having to confront that. What I have learned after spending a big chunk of my adult life and my career trying to insulate myself from being vulnerable to finally being vulnerable is that’s where the richness is. That’s where the cool things happen. Sometimes it hurts like hell. Sometimes it feels fantastic, but either way it’s a reminder that you’re doing something cool, something special. I think that’s great. That’s my brief editorial. Two elements that we’ve got left to hit. The post-deal negotiation conversation process to whatever degree you can disclose. One thing about Shark Tank is they have narrow boundaries in which they want you to talk about this stuff. We’ll stay within those, but to whatever degree you can, what was that process like? Was it what you expected? Share what you can.

Our confidentiality clause is a unique one and very tight. We can’t say much about the actual negotiations. What I can say is that it takes a lot longer than you would anticipate. It’s not like raising any other money. It’s not even like raising money from that individual outside of Shark Tank would be an easier process. Shark Tank is a long process.  

You also recognize that you’ve got this whole additional layer. Ultimately, first and foremost, this is me, this is my opinion. Let me be clear on this. It is that it’s entertainment first. It’s not a financial transaction. It’s professional investors necessarily, although they’re professional Angel investors. They’re not necessarily highly CPG oriented to know what’s market and what’s going on. I would encourage anyone to understand that the money is secondary to what I want to delve into which is the PR, and how you started to think about it, prepared for it, and when you got that call saying you’re going to air in a three-week heads up.

That’s Christmas eve. We have a few vacation days. We didn’t take any vacation days, that’s for sure, but there were some holidays in there that slowed some things down.  

It’s all-hands-on-deck right away. As I said before, there are no guarantees. We didn’t think we were going to air. We didn’t know that we would air. We were hoping, and we anticipated that we would probably air in March based on when we filmed but for whatever reason, they wanted to put our episode sooner. It was a mad dash to make sure that we had a support system around us to be able to feel the inquiries, to feel the messages, the press inquiries and requests. We learned from our experience with Kickstarter that whenever there’s a mention of Slice of Sauce, it’s such a polarizing unique and innovative product that people want to talk about it. With Kickstarter, there was a lot of negativity. There were a lot of questions that were not answered. We hadn’t learned yet how to best position our product, to talk about our products. We were just coming up with it.

What Shark Tank helped us do was create a narrative that was positive and exciting. The messages we were getting were outpourings of support and love, “This is a great idea.” There were a few take it behind the barn and shoot it comments. For the most part, it’s positive. Having a team in place to help us navigate that, and know what press to do and what press not to do. The first press that we did were trade publications. We did Food Navigator and Austin Business Journal, things like that to tap into not just the consumer, but also investors that might be reading these things, or buyers that might be reading these things. From that, we’ve been able to harness tons of whether its investors reaching or buyers reaching out, or unique food service applications that we didn’t think we might be ready for that turns out are probably closer on the runway than we would have thought.  

Walk us through the plan. For those of us who know and love Emily, she’s a planner. Emily, how did you begin to prep for the air date? I know it was crazy. I know it was a ton of work.  

It was overwhelming. We had been vetting a few different agencies, consultants, freelancers to help us. We threw it out there like, “This is pending. There may be a fire drill episode. If we get that call, we may need you on deck and we may need to act quickly.” We were very fortunate that we had done a lot of that work and a lot of that dating, but we had met a lot of these folks in the fall so that we were prepared to pull that trigger as soon as we got that call. We had a web developer during the day, and then we had another web developer at night who was working on performance and speed on our website. That was first and foremost. We needed to have a website that operated well when you have 50,000 people looking at it.

How did you know to think about that? I don’t know that would be necessarily top of mind for some like, “We’ve got to make sure that our website isn’t a piece of shit and doesn’t fall apart under the crash of interests.” I know for me, I wouldn’t have thought of that, not in a million years. Were the people coaching you about those things?

Shark Tank is amazing because there’s an enormous community. It’s been around now, this is the twelfth season. There are many companies that have been through this and it’s a very nurturing community. We had been connected to a couple of other founders that have been through the process, either made deals or not made deals over the years, and had calls with them. They were incredibly supportive in sharing their experience and what they would have done differently. All of them out the gates said, “Make sure that your website is dialed in, that your web speed, and your websites speed on mobile and desktop is in the right performance base, and that your funnel is wide enough to capture all of this information.”

For us, we were in a crazy position because we’re taking pre-orders. We don’t even have inventory yet. We’re just ramping up our scale production with our manufacturer in Mexico. We’re like, “This is a little bit too early.” We had to make sure that our website told this story that we needed to tell of, “Be the first to welcome to join the slice age. Push that pre-order button, get yourself in line so that you can reserve your slices,” and capture those people, and then to let them know that this is a pre-order and we don’t even have a ship date yet. To be able to do that, our entire focus was around that type of campaign. Because of these conversations we’d had with other companies, we knew to look for this and this, and make sure that those things are dialed in.  

You’re hunkered down. You’re ready for this. Before we talk about the unleashing of once it was aired and so forth, it’s the first time you’ve seen it. It’s hard to watch yourself on TV. For me, I love that this is a podcast medium because I can throw this video. I always say I’ve got a face for a podcast. I’m much happier with my voice than I am the way I look. How was that experience of sitting there together, watching the way they cut it and put it together? First of all, was it terrifying when it first started? What was scarier, the actual taping or the viewing?

I don’t think there’s anything scarier than the taping, but I will share an epic fail on my part on the day that it was airing. I thought that I was going to create this brilliant chatbot that was going to have every FAQ that you could imagine about Slice of Sauce. You could get on the website and within thirteen seconds you would have your top three questions answered, and you’d never have to interact with a human, but if you did want to speak to a human, you would get me or Cole. I was setting up and I don’t know anything about chatbots. I got myself involved and I set up this matrix and all of these questions. Cole was looking at the chart going, “What is that?” I said, “This is my most brilliant moment. Just wait. This is incredible. It’s going to take all of the work off of our shoulders. We’re going to have many conversions because people are going to have their wildest questions answered right away.” Cut to 7:01 and the episode is live. The chatbot is just millions of lights and people are saying, “Are you there? Are you a human? Where are you?”

I panicked. There were many bing, bing and thousands of people are writing in.

I had a canned answer document. I was like, “Just copy and paste. You got this.” It was a disaster.

My hands were on the keyboard. I was sweating. It was so overwhelming. Quickly we’re like, “Shut down the chatbot, turn the chatbot off.” The emails are coming in. We were stationed in Austin at a dear friend of ours house. He was kind enough to let us set up our war room there. I made about six laptops open and the two of us, and then these other four individuals, the two couples. We gave them access to our [email protected] account. We had people firing off answers for us. It was overwhelming. The biggest part beyond the chatbot was not knowing what was going to air. We didn’t know they were going to air the tension that Emily and Barbara had. Are they going to air the moment where Emily says we’re going to do $1.8 million in sales? I looked at her and I said, “We are?” Mark goes, “Cole, you don’t know your business very well, do you?” I thought, “What’s going to happen?” None of that was aired. What aired was pleasant, positive, and overwhelmingly supportive. That and the validation of the Sharks going, “This is great. This tastes so good. Great idea. That is a good idea,” Mark Cuban said. That drove conversion and interest. We weren’t ready and aware, and then you sweat. You’re like, “My heart is beating. I needed a cocktail.”

Have you gone back to watch the episode disconnected from that night just to watch it? Did you feel good about it? I hope so.  

We watched it twice since. It’s not something where I’m popping popcorn and watching.  

I’ll share with everyone reading a funny story. My brother who is an Orthodox rabbi, his youngest son, they grew up as Orthodox, with very limited access to TV or popular media, but Yosef loves Shark Tank. That’s just one show that he wants and he’s addicted to it. I happened to let him know that you guys were going to be on. For three weeks he would check, “When’s it going to be on?” He couldn’t watch it on a Friday night because it was Sabbath. He had to wait until Sunday, and then he sat down and watched it. He called me with all of his ideas, suggestions and thoughts. It was great. You’re heroes in his book.  

We got Saturday night after the sun had gone down, and Sunday we were flooded with interest from the Orthodox community. It was like, “Is this kosher? Do you have a kosher certification?” It was somebody who had been certified. It was hilarious just to see the waves. As I always said, we’re cord-cutters. We don’t watch things in live. The tail of the spike of interest that you see is so much longer because folks are watching it. They’re not all watching it the way we used to watch it. We’re watching it three weeks from now.

More and more, especially Millennials, we are too. One final question that Kate came in over text here, which you got to always ask. Looking back, forget about the taping because we can armchair quarterback all of that stuff. I’m more interested in the post-airing prep execution other than the chatbot. What do you wish you had done differently and what was your biggest learning or takeaway from what you did?  

Our focus right now is top of the funnel, creating some fun and interesting content that continues to educate the consumer, continues to be engaging. We’re talking a lot about TikTok. We’re doing some interesting things in terms of our content. We could have been doing that months ago, right after we walked off the set, rather than thinking about that now. We dragged our feet a little bit and those are dollars that you’re spending to create that content. It doesn’t come out of nowhere. We were scared to spend that money because we thought maybe we wouldn’t air, they’re so clear about there are no guarantees. However, that’s part of building a great brand, whether you’re on Shark Tank or not, we should be doing those things anyway. We could have been getting ahead of that, learning how to operate your email marketing, and your flows, and figuring out what that looks. Learning the ins and outs of eCommerce, which Shark Tank or not, those are all parts of running a successful direct to consumer business. We could have been doing that all along.

One of the challenges that we’ve had is this cart-horse situation because we haven’t been able to ship product for so long, we’ve been in this scale-up process, manufacturing conundrum of finding our co-packer and getting that going. We were hesitant to start to build out a community, build out relationships, create outreach and content. We don’t have a product to ship yet. We’ve always been careful, cautious, and nurtured relationships, but have been hesitant to build them. Shark Tank has allowed us to build this relationship. In one moment, we now have this community. It’s about nourishing and nurturing that community until we have the product to ship and then go out and build that community further. To use those early adopters, those Shark Tank fans that ordered on the nights and have them become our evangelists out there, ushering in the slice age. It’s been a very slow process doing it. I agree that we could have been doing more sooner, but we’ve been cautious about it.  

Would you guys do this again? Knowing what you know now, were you glad you did it?

Yes. I highly recommend anybody to go through it. The one thing I would say is if they want you to make a deal, they want you to go in, be sincere about what you’re after. They can sniff out those that are just trying to get on TV for the lift and exposure. It was a great experience.  

Thanks for coming on and for sharing about it a bit. First of all, it’s super cool. Secondly, it’s fun to learn a little bit more. I learned stuff about Shark Tank that I didn’t know. I love the idea that they have someone there to help you decompensate afterward. Thank you so much for being here.

Thanks for having us, Elliot. Take care.

Important Links

• Slice Of Sauce

• [email protected]

Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share! tigbrands.com/tig-talks/