How The Jam Stand Went From City Stalls to National Stores
Making it big as an entrepreneur in New York City is a bit like playing a poker game: sometimes you tough it out, oftentimes you fold. But on occasion, it’s worth rethinking the product, the model or even the business itself.
Local startup The Jam Stand knows exactly what this means. The Brooklyn-based company sells custom and oftentimes irreverent fruit jams and preserves, ranging from the banana-and-rum infused Drunken Monkey (tagline: “Pass up on me and you’ll be pissed you wasted your chance!”) to an unusual pepper and raspberry concoction called Razzy Gabby & a Side of Jalapeño (slogan: “Don’t fret if you fear a spicy smear”).
A pivot need not be an earth-wracking, all-encompassing shift from one industry to a completely new industry. Experts believe there is more than one type of pivot that can be made. For example, a shift in any aspect of the business model can be a type of pivot, as the company develops new ideas while discarding unworkable ones.
“You may have something very valuable in your business… it could be a great brand or a great concept or some equipment or some good patents or great people,” said Melissa Schilling, a professor of management and organizations at New York University. “And it doesn’t make sense to liquidate those or to shut down.”
After its founding five years ago, The Jam Stand changed its distribution model several times, from selling at market stalls to selling directly to consumers, before eventually contracting with a distributor to sell its product in stores across the world. The company pivoted away from selling at markets once it considered the associated expense and unreliable turnout. “It’s a lot of work to set up just for a day and to break down,” said founder Jessica Quon. “Whereas putting that effort and money towards finding a distributor, getting into stores, you see a lot more returns on that.”
The Jam Stand was founded by Jessica Quon and Sabrina Valle, and began by selling at small markets like Artists & Fleas in Brooklyn and the Hester Street Fair in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. “That was how we initially tested out… different flavors and see what people liked more than other things that we were making,” said Valle. “It was kind of like our platform for testing a lot of stuff.”
The change from stalls to distributors also gave them the unexpected benefit of refining their product lineup. “I think they were really smart to create their classic line,” said Megan Baris, the general manager at Dépanneur, a specialty grocer based in Williamsburg which carries the range of products from The Jam Stand. Although The Jam Stand initially had fun, smart flavors, their real sales came from their classic versions: strawberry and grape. Baris believes her customers reliably purchase “straight up old fashioned jam,” because they can use it every day, unlike more zany flavors typically relegated to cheese plates at parties — and consequently not repurchased for months.
As it turns out, their pivot in distribution created another way to test certain flavors. “Good companies are adaptive enough that they’re ready to change and able to change well,” Schilling said. The key to a successful pivot lies in what Schilling calls “dynamic capabilities” in strategy.
“People decide to pivot when they come to the conclusion that there is a business model that’s better than the one they are pursuing,” Schilling said. “From the moment they realize that, that’s probably the moment they should pivot, because if you’re pretty sure that that’s true, only sunk costs and inertia are gonna keep you in the old business model.”
