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Oak Ridge North, TX
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I believe I share a similar story with a lot of other spice community product reviews found on YouTube when it comes to what originally inspired me to start this journey. However, I have changed my direction a few times since starting. As I started to plan everything out and dig deeper into it all, I started to meet some incredibly amazing people behind these products, which has brought us to where we are today.
Prior to March 2019, having spent the last year or two as a caregiver for my dad, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s Disease along with Osteoarthritis in his back which caused him to eventually walk completely hunched over, I had plenty of time spent in my studio watching videos. Towards the end of dad’s last couple of months here, I had stumbled across the First We Feast: Hot Ones videos and found myself binge watching every episode. I can now say I have officially watched every episode and it is where the original inspiration was birthed from.
One night when a friend was over, Michael Zepeda, I showed him a couple videos and told him I wanted to try something like this. He liked the idea despite, at the time, having a very low tolerance for spicy food. Had it been up to him, we would have started shooting that week, but me, being the perfectionist I tend to be, needed more time to plan it out. While the YouTube videos and a few people were saying I just needed to start putting out videos immediately, I knew that the talent we had on our team, even with just Michael and myself, was far better than that. A few weeks later, we introduced the idea to another mutual friend of ours, Rocky Guillory. He was in! We met weekly to brainstorm and figure out what we needed to make this happen at the level that I expected. As time went by, we started to grow our social media little by little. After some detailed planning and one failed attempt, we finally had a promo I was pleased with and launched our YouTube Channel. During the shooting of the promo, is also the time where I realized that my body would reject any pepper being put into my body hotter than a jalapeno!!
One of our brainstorming sessions included talking about sponsors and from my standpoint I had mentioned that I didn’t want any sponsors until we had a few episodes out and we could prove our value enough to show we were worthy of having sponsors. But, without asking, Natural Northern Foods reached out to us offering us their 2 hot sauces and then the Sunburnt Sauce Company did the same and before we knew it, we had sponsors left and right. And these companies weren’t even looking for a spot on our show. They simply wanted to get the hot sauces in our hands to try. I talked it over with Michael and Rocky and we decided to go ahead and take sponsors. We offered them the first spots on our show in return for their products and they, along with several others, agreed. Eventually we would be blown away by the response we would get from our sponsors. Currently, we have enough product for 4 full episodes with a 5th episode in the making. This is also the point where I realized that I wanted to change directions for the show from the crazy, super spicy challenges to focusing on the people behind the products. As we gained more and more sponsors for the shows, I had the opportunity to get to know more about these people and I found out how amazing these people really were. Some of these makers had already made the leap to growing a full fledged company while others were still on that road. Some work 40, 50, 60 hours or more a week at their normal job only to come home and mix, bottle, label, and seal their passion up for others to try on the weekend. Sometimes, the only advertising they have time for is a couple hours at a farm markets every weekend. We’ve met veteran owned companies, those who raise money for charities, people overseas, and those simply working their butts off everyday to achieve their dreams and provide for their families.
