John King Of The Original Pickle Shot On 5 Things You Need To Create a Successful Food or Beverage Brand

An Interview With Martita Mestey

Persistence — You will hear NO more than YES, especially in the beginning. If it was easy, everyone would do it. See where you can get some initial success. With my alcohol product I kept getting rejected from bars and also was a lot harder to get in front of the decision maker. So i switched my focus to retail stores that carry a much larger selection and immediately saw more success.

As a part of our series called “5 Things You Need To Create a Successful Food or Beverage Brand”, I had the pleasure of interviewing John King.

John King is a 41 year old alcohol beverage entrepreneur originally from just outside of Philadelphia. Although John had much experience working in restaurants and bars and then a career as a strength & conditioning coach, he did not have any experience as a spirit supplier. John and his two co-founders, husband and wife Justin and Brittney launched The Original Pickle Shot in late 2018.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you share with us the story of the “ah ha” moment that led to the creation of the food or beverage brand you are leading?

Similar story to that of Skrewball Peanut Butter Whiskey that has exploded in popularity. Husband & wife co founders ending up owning a bar (Pickles Pub OCMD) in a popular summer beach town called Ocean City Maryland. They were serving over 100K shots a year of a wildly popular self made shot called The Original Pickle Shot. Seeing one of their friends and mentors creating his own branded alcohol product successfully prior, that was the “ah ha” moment and they decided to go for it and bottle their famous shot brand.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

When I first started, I was tasked with sales and opening new accounts. At this point we were self distributing as we had no distributor at this point so not the easiest task. What makes it even harder is when you try to make your first alcohol sale in a controlled county (liquor laws). So I could not sell to them, I had to go through the county. So that was a quick learning lesson to do your research before you start making sales calls.

What are the most common mistakes you have seen people make when they start a food or beverage line? What can be done to avoid those errors?

Since we have made a lot of them there are plenty to choose from. I think the biggest thing I learned early on is “if you don’t know” ask someone. As in you don’t always have to learn from your mistakes. You can avoid a lot of mistakes, some that can end a beverage line before it even begins. There are so many resources and people willing to answer questions you just have to be able to find the right people to answer those questions.

Let’s imagine that someone reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to produce. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?

Research and write out a plan. Is this product already out there, who is your competition and why will your product be better? If you can answer these questions confidently then you can move onto protecting your idea, formulating it and producing. But these should not be done until you have a solid plan to start. In saying this we didn’t have any of these things done and still made it to this point.

Many people have good ideas all the time. But some people seem to struggle in taking a good idea and translating it into an actual business. How would you encourage someone to overcome this hurdle?

This was partly answered in the two previous questions. Like I said we didn’t have a good plan but I give my co-founders credit for starting the process and figuring out how to produce our product. In short, you have to just go for it sometimes. The 2nd part is once again “if you don’t know” ask. You have the idea, now start asking the questions how can I produce this. If you don’t know how to start a business, research and learn and then when you still don’t know. Find someone (a friend, a mentor, a family member) that is successful at business and pick their brain. Buy them lunch for an hour of their time.

There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?

If it works within your budget and plan it certainly does not hurt to pursue consultants. They typically have much more experience and answers in this field than you do. Just make sure you know their terms and make sure you take steps necessary to protect your idea. NDA’s and contracts are your friend and everything is negotiable.

What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?

I think every situation is different. In our situation we have been fortunate to be able to bootstrap this since the beginning and still be able to grow quickly at the pace we have. I think this is one of the most important decisions you can eventually make so I think it requires the most research and time invested to make a decision that’s best for your brand. We are exploring these options ourselves now and in our 5th year.

Can you share thoughts from your experience about how to file a patent, how to source good raw ingredients, how to source a good manufacturer, and how to find a retailer or distributor?

I think its important to research and start small with someone you are going to partner with or do business with. Build up a good working relationship and then you can expand from there. Ask for clients they currently work with and get feedback, ask lots of questions, negotiate costs if possible and lastly go with your gut. Always keep as much flexibility for your business as possible and when needed consult a lawyer when entering into contracts. Protect yourself, your idea and your business because you can’t always rely on someone’s word unfortunately.

Here is the main question of our discussion. What are your “5 Things You Need To Create a Successful Food or Beverage Brand” and why?

1. Thick Skin — I was told by many people whether i asked or not in the first couple of years “this is worst,” “good luck with this,” “you know what you should do,” and my favorite “is this your full time job” among other things. It wasn’t until I started hearing all the positive reactions that I started to believe in my product. Also in today’s world with social media, everyone is a critic and might not understand what actually goes into the entire process. Listen to people that matter and ignore the ones that do not.
2. Persistence — You will hear NO more than YES, especially in the beginning. If it was easy, everyone would do it. See where you can get some initial success. With my alcohol product I kept getting rejected from bars and also was a lot harder to get in front of the decision maker. So i switched my focus to retail stores that carry a much larger selection and immediately saw more success.
3. Help — Don’t be afraid to ask for help. If you can’t find the right person or the answer online for free, then pay someone for their time and expertise. There is always someone who has already been through or answered the questions you have. This will save you a lot of trouble and mistakes that put some people out of business. We should have and almost went out of business 3x in the beginning because of mistakes of others.
4. Creativity — It is competitive and there is always someone with more money or a bigger company that you are competing against. You need an edge to be able to compete. That could be in the product itself or marketing, really anything that helps it stick out from the rest. We personally found our niche where there was not a market leader and decided we are going to do that better than anyone. Some strategic partnerships in that category definitely helped.
5. Commitment — It’s going to take a lot of work. Especially if you are starting from scratch. You will have good days and you will definitely have bad days but its important to keep that balance and keep moving forward and making decisions that are best for the business. That means it might not always be the best for you. You will have to do the little things that nobody else will do and no one knows you are doing. In the beginning I would fit as many cases in my Honda Civic and drive sometimes 14 hour days just to deliver cases to our customers across the state. This was before we had a distributor. Someone has to do it.

Can you share your ideas about how to create a product that people really love and are ‘crazy about’?

Find out what people LOVE, because they become a customer for life.

Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

We try to help where we can and especially try to support our local community where we came from. We were a small friend & family, self funded brand that grew very quickly. We come from a place that enjoys the sun, good people and nice cold drinks. We like to think we bring that together with our brand and give people a reason to “Cheers” and enjoy themselves. As we continue to grow we will continue to look for opportunities to make the world a better place.

You are an inspiration to a great many people. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

Less Hate more Shots (The Original Pickle Shot)

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.