When most brands struggle to break through the noise online, Chris Lang and Fresh Chili Company cracked the code by doing something radically different: they started with story, not sales. In this episode, discover how a small New Mexico chili company became a top 1% Shopify store with explosive 85% year-over-year growth, a 4.96% conversion rate, and 3.74% ROAS—all while building an engaged community that devours their content faster than NBA games get views.

Chris reveals the exact strategies behind their meteoric rise, from leveraging organic social as a testing ground for paid ads to creating "addictive" content that turns customers into brand evangelists. This isn't another generic growth story—it's a masterclass in building authentic connections that drive real business results.

Key Topics & Insights:

• The Foundation-First Marketing Philosophy - Why Chris posts 7 times daily on Facebook and how he uses his Shopify product pages as a content roadmap (most brands have this completely backwards)
• The Organic-to-Paid Testing Strategy - How Fresh Chili discovers winning ads by boosting organic posts first, then scaling the winners through ASC campaigns—saving thousands in ad spend
• Search Domination Beyond Google - Why they're ranking #2 for "hatch green chili" and how they're preparing for the YouTube/TikTok search revolution (plus their ChatGPT optimization strategy)
• Community-Driven Product Development - The Facebook group strategy that turned customers into cookbook contributors and created authentic urgency through strategic "sell-outs"

The Meta Profitability Problem - Chris's candid discussion about pulling back on Meta spend and restructuring toward content-first growth for better margins

Chapters: 

(00:00) Introduction to Fresh Chile Company

(02:30) History of The Chili Capital of the World

(07:03) Keys to Success: Storytelling & Community

(11:20) Balancing Organic and Paid Strategies

(16:57) Creative Content & Testing Philosophy

(21:47) Building a Brand Story

(24:22) Search Visibility

(27:46) SEO Strategies & Content Plans

(34:20) How Fresh Chile Builds Community

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Chris Lang:

One of the number one things people do, especially inspired how we just pour chili on burgers. People just started kind of tagging us and in and out and Whataburger and McDonald's or Wendy's we're like, Hey, let's just get this a contest for people and get the winner 10,000.

Brett Curry:

Well, hello and welcome to another edition of the E-Commerce Evolution podcast. I'm your host, Brett Curry, CEO of OMG Commerce, and today we are going to unpack a phenomenal success story, a top 1% Shopify store, one of the coolest brands, one of the tastiest brands you'll encounter. We're going to be looking at the remarkable success of Fresh Chili Company. I've got Chris Lang on the show today of Fresh Chili Company. He also is involved in email marketing and helps run an organic social agency. And we met through Ezra Firestone's Blue Ribbon Mastermind and just overall a really cool and really smart dude. And so with that, welcome to the show, Chris Lang. And how's it going man?

Chris Lang:

Good man. Yeah, thank you for having me. Actually drove up to the mountains today. We're going to go get on a lake and some paddleboards in a little bit after this. Amazing. I had my son,

Brett Curry:

What lake? And tell the folks where you are so everyone can be jealous.

Chris Lang:

Yeah, it's New Mexico is where we're at. So Hatch, New Mexico is the chili capital of the world and just think Napa is the wine. And so we live in Las Cruces. So you travel through the desert, you travel through White Sands, and then you end up in these mountains and Ruidoso. And the name of the lake is Grindstone Lake and it's just a good place. The paddleboard fish kind of enjoy the cooler weather. It's already creeped up in the nineties, so it's in the seventies right now. So we're just going to try to take advantage of that today.

Brett Curry:

Go enjoy some cool weather. Yeah, my stepbrother actually just vacationed in New Mexico. It's like the second or third year is done and he said it's phenomenal. We live in Missouri and so I'll have to get out there and check it out. Now I am a huge hot Sauce fan, chili fan, spicy fan. Not like the so spicy that you have to wear gloves or that you pass out or faint as a hotness or anything like that, but I love a little kick. Right. So what makes Hatch New Mexico the chili capital of the world? Why is that?

Chris Lang:

Yes, I mean that's a great question. So what I love to tell people is that New Mexico is the untold story of America history. Growing up in America, you have a very much a east coast education level of America, and a lot of it's actually here in New Mexico you had kind of the Spanish missionaries coming up through Mexico and to New Mexico. And so the oldest wine region is in America, is

Brett Curry:

There in New Mexico. What part of New Mexico is that?

Chris Lang:

Yeah, so actually the southern part of New Mexico in 1629. Interesting.

Chris Lang:

The Spanish fry is planted, the first grape and the name of that grape is called Mission. So that's the name of the grape and it's just been a fertile hotbed for agriculture. And so everything from grapes to Lechuga, that's lettuce and Spanish pecans, chili cotton. So it's actually the number one producer of cons in the world, our area. It's also the number one or one of the top two to three producer of onions in America. It actually produces more onions than chili actually. And so when you think of kind the Mexican plate and fajitas, you got onions, you got peppers, you kind of got it all. I mean obviously the oldest cattle drive existed through New Mexico as well. So kind of just a really great history. History. And the Rio Grande that flows from Texas up into Colorado is really kind of the base line for agriculture in a lot of ways throughout history.

Chris Lang:

And so all the farmlands kind of hug up against the riverbed. And the Chile was kind of grown by native Peblo early on and then it was adopted by other kind of farmers. And the farmer that we work with now, his family's been doing it for six generations. They came from Italy and into the area and six generation is strong. And it's just something that, I'll tell you what it is, it's addicting. Okay. I'm just going to be totally honest with you. Okay. What is the secret? There is something about it that it's almost like the crack cocaine, and I'm not even joking. It's one of those things that the official smell of New Mexico is the smell of roasted green chili. That is the official smell. I think we're the only state in America to have an official smell because it's intoxicating that cap. And then the flavor of it is that you kind of have this kind of thick, meaty chili pod and then the flavor of it, especially when it's flame roasted, it's like nothing that anyone has experienced. And so the way that Italians kind of brought tomatoes into a Western cuisine, I really feel like that's where we're at with American cuisine over the next 20, 30 years as Hispanics are the number one.

Chris Lang:

And I think American taste palettes are getting a little spicier. That's where they want the flavor. And so it actually is closer to, it's a fruit, it's closer to a tomato than most people realize, but it's just think of it as a more flavorful, spicier

Brett Curry:

Type of tomato. Man. Sounds absolutely magical. I can't wait to visit some of those places and see the farm in person. But leading up to this, of course you hooked me up and got to order some product

Chris Lang:

From

Brett Curry:

Fresh Chili Company and I've been cooking on a Blackstone for quite some time now. Love to cook. Yes, and love making different types of burritos. I love a Cali, be a California style burrito. And so with the fresh tortillas that you cook on the griddle and then carne sada and sometimes fries, and then having the hatch green chilies. Oh my goodness. I know that may not be traditional Cali be, but come on. It was awesome.

Brett Curry:

So a few other people in my family extended family are into spice and they were raving about Hatch green chilies from fresh chili company. And so really good stuff, man. Kudos to you for creating an amazing product and telling an amazing story. And as people are listening to this, they're like, dang, this guy tells a good story. And so we're going to get into storytelling here and how you do that. I know you're all about storytelling, community building strategy to grow great brand. And so we're going to unpack that as we go, but I want to share a couple of stats about Fresh Chili Company because I think this will blow people away. It's top 1% Shopify over the last 365 years. You're up 58% roas, 3.74% mer 27% website conversion rate 4.96%, so pushing 5% on conversion rate, which is insane year to date though so far you're up 85%. So the growth rate is accelerating, which is phenomenal. And listen, it's a great, great product as we've discussed, but you're clearly doing a lot of things well. So can you unpack that a little bit for us? What have been the keys to this meteoric rise aside from just a killer product?

Chris Lang:

Yes, it's really about the story and I'll go into why and not really just have a cop out answer, right? Because as I kind of told you, Chile is a way of life in New Mexico and throughout the southwest, so west Texas through southern California and for all the transplants that moved to Florida from those places. And so my partner who he and his wife were cooking this recipe in their home for his real estate clients, and this was his dad's recipe again, it was passed down from another generation. And so they were making this product out of their home, an entrepreneur and had some success in some other industries locally here. And they reached out to me and was like, Hey, we'd like to sell this online. We think we got something here. And funny enough, my wife had actually just bought a jar around that holiday season or found a jar somehow and I tasted it.

Chris Lang:

And so Hatch has really done a good job of branding itself for chili, but I saw an opportunity that everyone was focused on retail and there really wasn't a lot of competition online. And I just saw it as an opportunity to really tell, not just my partner story, obviously that's the foundation, but I was like with this opportunity of what does Hash Green Chili do? It brings family and friends together over their favorite recipes around the dinner table. It was bringing people together. And so how did I make it the customer kind of the hero kind of really their story too. And I would say one of the biggest things we did is we had a Facebook group and it just wasn't just hash chili everything. Obviously we could have grown that really a lot faster, but we kept it around fresh chili products, specifically kind of kept it private, a little more exclusive. And then we started selecting weekly winners, recipe of the week winners, and then we turned those weekly recipe of the week when's into a cookbook. And all of a sudden those people have something tangible to show their family and friends, Hey, check out my recipe, check out my story. That is aligned also with the Fresh Chili story. And so for me, that's probably been the biggest thing that we've done is we've really just kind of, how do we bring people together over their favorite meals?

Brett Curry:

It's amazing. It's amazing. And that's really what it's about. I mean, that's the magic of food. We eat food obviously because enjoyable and we have to have it to survive. But the magic of food is the gathering, right? And the sharing and the, Hey, I want you to taste this recipe and I want you to try these fresh chilies with a chip or with the burrito or whatever. And it's a magical experience. And so you saw an opportunity to sell online, and I think we've all had this experience. We walked down the aisle at the local grocery store, and even if we're at a place, maybe it's in the local section or we're at a local health food store or something and we'll see some salsa or some chilies, but you don't know the story. You don't really know what's behind this and is it good or is it not good? I say, this show is 12 bucks, this one, six bucks. What's the difference? I don't know. And so you leaned into a channel that was leveraged, told a great story, and now it's really grown. And so I know the cool thing about what you guys are doing is you're doing a lot with organic storytelling, correct? You're also leaning heavily into paid as every good Shopify brand is to a certain degree. And so can you talk about the balance there of organic to paid? And again, I know that all kind of ties back to storytelling.

Chris Lang:

Yeah, I mean, I've been buying meta ads since 2011 I think in some way or shape or fashion. And I actually don't do this for anyone else. To me it's a very, I feel like every season of meta, I mean I feel like 20 19, 20 20 21, I feel like every year it's like every season of Meta. I like that every season of

Brett Curry:

Meta, a lot of distinct seasons.

Chris Lang:

And I remember even last year, January, February, where it was just like, man, what is going on here? And so that's where the foundation of the cooking group, organic social has really kind of I would say helped carry us through really hard times, especially when you marry it with retention, with some really solid retention strategies. Because I know when meta is sort of volatile, I can lean on my community and I can lean my retention strategies to kind of carry the brand through. Obviously if you've got some product drops and those kinds of things, that helps. But the thing that I really do now, I really marry the two strategies together. So I actually do a lot of testing of boosting organic posts, and I'm looking for buy signals and how many likes, how many comments, how many shares, how many engagements. And I've constantly just kind of always thought of them as a unified platform, whereas everyone treats them very separately, paid is doing paid and organic, is doing organic, and they don't really talk to each other. But I don't really believe in that philosophy. I believe that once you have a good strategy for both, then it really sets you up for success. Again, we're going, I think we completed our sixth year. This will be our seventh year. And it's because we have kind of both really educating people top of funnel, but also testing creative that if it's working well, we'll throw the a SE campaign and sort of let it run its lifecycle as a winner.

Brett Curry:

That's a great man. And so just to unpack that a little bit, so you're making organic post storytelling post, maybe it's a recipe, maybe it's telling what the founder is up to cooking or making things.

Chris Lang:

Exactly.

Brett Curry:

So you create an organic post, you boost it, just plain old, boost it, see how it performs, and then if it performs well, you'll turn that into an A SE ad.

Chris Lang:

Exactly. Exactly.

Brett Curry:

Nice, nice. Are you finding that a lot of your winning ads are coming from that pool of ads or do a lot of your winners come from ads you created with the intention of it being an ad?

Chris Lang:

No, I mean, if you look at our A SC library, it's going to be mostly live videos from the farm or videos that

Brett Curry:

We

Chris Lang:

Do. People really liked authenticity, and I know some brands struggle with it. Well, it's because you're a food category. How many other foods are out there too competing for the same thing? I just don't believe that. I know that we as founders are showing up every day and every week for our customers, and I think our customers see that. And a lot of people treat metal. I kind of like it to a casino now, and it almost feels like a money slot machine. And if you just want to go in and put in a quarter and try to get 50 cents back, I mean you're just playing the wrong game. You really got to tell a story.

Brett Curry:

Yeah, totally agree. I mean, if you look at what has good marketing been from the beginning of time, it's good storytelling. It's storytelling to the right audience in the right way with a clear offer attached to it. And that's really it. And I'm a firm believer that every brand is in the business of whatever they sell,

Brett Curry:

Plus they're a media company. They're in the business of getting and keeping attention and then moving people to take action. And so that really begins with a good story and the ability to tell great stories. And so let's unpack that a little bit. So you say some of your best content is on the farm, showing people where the chilies are grown. Is it a combination of that plus seeing the product? I saw a post just recently and it was like a taco or something, dipping it in the chili sauce. I was like, oh my goodness, I'm so hungry right now. But talk about what does the creative mix look like, what's working, and then maybe unpack a little bit of your creative testing philosophy.

Chris Lang:

Yeah, I'll kind of start from the back there. So I have a philosophy on meta where I'm posting up to seven times a day on Facebook and people are like, well, that's too much. Not really. I mean, people are just thumb scrolling nonstop. And I also have the stats to prove that it's working. So I'm not concerned, I don't know if every brand can do that, but we're at a place where we can do that. But the philosophy behind that is think of your Shopify product display page. You got your carousel images, you got your hero product. Then what do you have? You might have a testimonial, you might have a money back guarantee, you might have an evergreen photo. You might also have ingredients or how it's made materials. And then also one of the other ones would be how to use the product, the best case, and then marry that.

Chris Lang:

The last seventh one would be a reel, a video reel, some kind of how you're using the product. And so when you think of, Hey, I don't know what to post every day, go to your product display pages, there's your game plan. And that's basically what we're focusing on and we're really focusing on educating people every day. And then so we rotate all those posts through the entire catalog. We have over 50 plus products, and so we rotate. We have all that line, we have all those seven benefits lined up for every one of the products, and we rotate that messaging out. And I guess one thing I didn't mention was behind the scenes farm stuff that is our foundation. So most people don't have a foundation. We only focus on creative.

Brett Curry:

So

Chris Lang:

They're like, okay, we've got to be creative. We've got the ad what it is, and you're just sort of like, okay, build a foundation. It's a very simple process. It's about education now, then when we go to the farm, that's the creativity. That's the stuff that's going to move the needle for us from an ad perspective. But guess what? When we go out to the farm and we have say a jalapeno mustard, you know what, I saw that jalapeno mustard a couple weeks ago. We got to really think about how customers consideration cycles one day, seven day, whatever you want to call it. But we don't really spend enough time trying to educate them through the entire process because I was a guy who 30 day marketing plans, 90 day marketing plans, six months annual. I've done it all. But what was missing is now I don't have to do any of that because I'm just rotating through all my products.

Chris Lang:

And that's really helped us with just educating and also on conversion. And then going back to the farm thing, what set us kind of different was we always went to the farm. My partner always did a great job of making sure we get to the farm and we do some videos and we kind of just talked about the product, or maybe the farmer was there and we talked to the farmer, but one day we were driving to the farm and I was like, you know what we should do? He's like, what's that? And I was like, let's grab a cheeseburger and let's just pull down the gate of the pickup truck and then let's just pour our chili on it and eat it. And then if you see my partner, he's like, Sam Elliot meets Morgan Freeman is he? He's got the voice, he's got the look. I mean, he looks like an old Hollywood Western star. So I mean, obviously that helps a lot. I've done videos too, but the reality of it is when we did that winlock something that was crazy because these cheeseburger, there's more people that watch these cheeseburger videos than watch an NBA game now, which is really weird to think about. It's such a weird,

Brett Curry:

It's crazy. Part of that, the NBA ratings are down. I still am an NBA fan, but part of that is, man, we want authentic content and we love our food, and it's just something really, really special. So yeah, that's

Chris Lang:

Crazy. Kudos to you guys. Just really kind of marry that connection of like, oh, this has to be the freshest product because they're literally standing in front of the farm eating with it. And so that

Brett Curry:

Was just, I love how you talk about that. You start with a strategy. You start with a platform. Don't begin with a, I need to create an ad.

Brett Curry:

You start with a, Hey, what is our story? Our story is these are fresh chilies from the farm or real farm in hash New Mexico, the chili capital of the world. And these are family recipes. And we've got Sam Elliott, not literally, but your co-founders like Sam Elliott, he's the farmer. And so we're going to start with that. We'll rotate through our products. We'll try to tell these stories in a unique way. We'll do fun stuff like pop open the tailgate, eat a burger, put some chilies on it. And so you're starting with a foundation, you're starting with strategy, then you're expanding from there really makes a lot of sense.

Chris Lang:

And again, just sort of, everyone has it backwards. They do paid, they do retention, and then they're thinking about what creative they need. And it's like now you need a foundation first. And that's really, I mean, again, you and I know some really savvy Shopify entrepreneurs. I'll go and look at their organic social and there's nothing there. I'm like, you're leaving money on the table or you're leaving growth on the table or lifetime value on the table. I mean, whatever you want to call it. Does it take work? Yes, it takes work. And we also do a little bit more.

Brett Curry:

Anything worth doing does,

Chris Lang:

Right? Right. And we also do a little bit more systematic where we like and comment on posts on Instagram. We go on the explore page, we go on the reels page, we go on the search, we look for terms, we engage with posts and stories and dms and we'll DM influencers. So again, it is a strategy. It is not as just simple as just creating content, posting it. But again, I wouldn't say that it's taking more than an hour or two a day for us to do this for ourselves. And so again, I think a lot of people just don't know where to start. And I think maybe that's a disconnect because there probably hasn't been a lot of course boys on Twitter selling this kind of information. So that's probably why it doesn't exist. It's maybe not

Brett Curry:

As flashy, not as sexy, not as enticing or not as throw a switch and get results.

Chris Lang:

The number one thing people are like, well most return on results. It's like, I mean, meta holds that close to the chest because they want the attribution, right? But when you marry it with the paid, then you see the results because the ads are performing better because there's already a little bit of social proof.

Brett Curry:

Totally. Totally makes sense. Well, I want to unpack a couple of other things that you mentioned are working. One of them is search visibility. And this is interesting from a couple perspectives. One, I've been a Google guy for a long time. I'm really a fan of just any marketing that works. So that's my foundation. I love great brands. I love great storytelling, I love marketing that works. But I've been doing Google forever and did SEO back in the early two thousands. So I've always loved search. But you said organic Google is up 76% and now some chat GPT queries are up.

Chris Lang:

Yeah.

Brett Curry:

But can you talk about that a little bit? What is driving that Google growth and chat GPT growth? What's making that happen? You're talking about

Chris Lang:

My biggest pain point I'm going through right now. I'm trying to get to number one on Google for the term Hatch green chili, and I'm number two.

Brett Curry:

That's amazing. It's amazing. But the difference in traffic, as we well know from one two is pretty significant. But kudos to you, man, being number two in a highly competitive, highly contested term that is no small feat. So kudos to you.

Chris Lang:

Nah, I appreciate it. But we could just lower customer acquisition costs down if we could just get to number one. And so it's something that's interesting right now and you'll be able to talk to more brevity in this use case. But what's interesting is a lot of our social media videos that we do from Facebook are actually showing up in Google's feed.

Chris Lang:

A lot of social content is really starting to influence searches. And then chat GT again, they're opening up the Shopify brand listing. If you want to list your product on chat gt, there's a submission process right now that they're going through, but also they are pulling up information from us and from our top competitor on Google. And it's something where recipes are obviously going to be a big factor in what we do. And Backlinking, I think is probably the hardest thing that it's been the hardest thing to do for us. It probably is going to be the noodle the most for us. We're actually working with a firm right now that is trying to help us to get to number one. And the reality of it is that timeline looks like it might be August. But at the same time, I think the influence of chat right now, it's really quite compelling and not in addition to YouTube search. And so we're asking the process of going through all our hard drives, terabytes of footage, and just making clips that we can just upload to YouTube and TikTok kind of search and intent volume.

Brett Curry:

It's such a smart idea because one, YouTube is the second largest search engine on the planet behind Google. And especially for things like recipes and cooking a lot of other categories, a lot of the how-to categories that it really crushes on TikTok search is exploding. So both of those make a ton of sense. And I'm really glad you brought this up because I think there's a narrative that says, Hey, Google is going to get eaten by chat GT or Perplexity or TikTok search. And listen, I think there are some existential threats to Google out there without question. But you mentioned something, and I've actually seen this. Google's earnings are up quarter over quarter. There's more searches conducted on Google now than a quarter ago. And so they're still in good position if they play the game right

Brett Curry:

To be viable. But regardless, there's still some opportunities for you right now to lean into search. And so there's some SEO pieces that help with traditional search. I know you're talking about the AI SEO or whatever, AI optimization. I think that's really important as well. And it even ties into Google with Gemini and AI mode and things like that. And so love that you're still leaning into trying to get good quality back links. That's something that I think a lot of people have abandoned. It's still relevant, even though Google tried to say a few years ago and I wouldn't really pay attention to the backlinks they do. That was the core of Google. Google's original innovation was looking at backlinks because those are third party votes on what content to trust, they still matter. So backlinking leaning into traditional SEO into AI optimization as well. And so what all you guys doing there from a content standpoint that's helping with SEO?

Chris Lang:

I think we've kind of done it in two stages. The first SEO firm we worked with really just helped with getting a lot of technical aspects together. I didn't realize your website had to be, it was mind blowing. The amount of detail that you have pay attention to

Brett Curry:

From a crawlability standpoint, a speed standpoint, the algorithm making sense of it or the crawlers making perfect sense of it, that sort of thing. So yeah, the technical aspect of SEO does make a difference.

Chris Lang:

And then we were doing recipes and we kind of got away from that a little bit, but we're launching a new YouTube channel. And I think it's more in my thought process is we kind of got the website foundation sort of done and now we're ranking on number two. Again, I think the back linking, I think some more kind of current information obviously can help. Really we're trying to be the authority for hatch green chilies. So what does that mean? It means you just don't come to us for sauces. It means you come to us fresh peppers, frozen freeze dried powders, spices.

Brett Curry:

So we have to be hatch green chilies equals fresh chili company. That's what you're trying to create.

Chris Lang:

Exactly. And I think too, also not discounting hot honey, spicy ketchup,

Brett Curry:

Both those products are having a moment right now. I just started seeing some local pizzerias that are doing hot honey serve with your pizza and lemme tell you something that will blow your mind and we'll change the game for pizza.

Chris Lang:

It's so good. And we make an excellent hot honey. And so there's definitely those factors to consider too. But really where I see moving is we got to show up on YouTube consistently every day. And that's really the strategy that I'm implementing right now.

Brett Curry:

And it's so powerful because not only are people searching directly on YouTube, but this is something that Google announced during Google Marketing Live just about a week ago, is that there's going to be more, and you kind of alluded to this, there's going to be more visibility of video content in search results. And Google's been testing this for a while, but if I ask a question of Google and we're now seeing with Gemini, the queries of five words or more have exploded. They're up like 150% this year versus last year. So more people are searching with voice more people are searching with kind of an AI mindset rather than a traditional SEO 10 blue links mindset. And so Google's then weaving in like, Hey, here's a clip from this YouTube video that answers your question, so check it out. And so I think there's just immense value to a brand like yours consistently cranking out great content. You'll get the YouTube search traffic, you'll start getting your videos showing up in Google search, and then of course you can take that audience, that audience you're building on YouTube, monetize it with YouTube ads as well. And so just tons and tons of benefits there.

Chris Lang:

And that's where it is. I mean, what's funny is I have all these numbers up year over year, and I'll be completely transparent with where I'm at now is I'm not really happy with the business numbers from a profitability standpoint. Got it. Because meta just eats so much. And really within the last two weeks, I'm started to pull back on meta a little bit. We're about to get into chili season in July and August, so I think I can take this gamble a little bit. And if we finish up 40% or 20%, what matters is it's profitability, obviously not the vanity me of top line revenue. And I'm actually restructuring everything to be more content focused. And we're going to focus on the creative, we're going to focus on the content, and we're really going to treat, we're going to make sure our websites getting updated daily. We're going to make sure our YouTube gets updated daily. We're going to really try to do that for the rest of the year and see where we end up. So kind of an interesting approach and interesting conversation right now.

Brett Curry:

Yeah, it's so interesting. But as you look at how as a brand do we differentiate, how do we differentiate versus the competition? How do we build total enterprise value, whether we just hope to capitalize on that and take distributions and enjoy those profits for a long time, or if we decide to have an exit, having a community, having a consistent content engine so hard to duplicate, it's so hard to match when you do that really, really well. Most other competitors, most other brands just can't. And so love that you're doing that. Love that you're leaning into SEO to YouTube content, to organic social and paid social. And we're coming towards the end of our time, but you also talked about what's working is the owned channel growth, and this really ties into storytelling and being intentional with your marketing, but you got a great email list. You just put out great content. Can you talk a little bit about that? How have you built that own media

Chris Lang:

And

Brett Curry:

Then any powerful lessons from email and SMS that have helped fuel that stable growth for fresh chilies?

Chris Lang:

Yeah. What's good is we have a pretty high repeat purchase rate. So it's not a product that you sort of buy and you're like, oh, okay, that was cool. Oh, that was great. Lemme try it again. And so I think one of the things that we do kind of differently to kind of help is, again, I'm an agency guy. I'm a designer. I mean, I've worked with Virgin Galactic and done stuff for ESPN and Discovery Channel. And so I get design, I get how much brand matters. But I tell you, man, when you just write an email from the heart and sign your name at the bottom, and it's just text only. I mean, people just feel like they're right there with you kind of growing along you, it truly feels like a one-to-one

Brett Curry:

Communication.

Chris Lang:

And I think that's been one of the most helpful things that we do. And the other thing that we kind of do is we really lean into product drops and development and small batch. So they sell out. I mean, I think we're going into the season sold out of, I was actually going to try to do this for the next update next week of how many products we've actually sold out of going into this season because it's a fine line where we're trying to forecast, but also be a small batch in a way that people feel like it is exclusive, that you just can't get a retail setting. And so I think

Brett Curry:

That, and selling out a little bit's kind of cool. It really creates urgency, authentic urgency to buy the next drop because you're going to sell out.

Chris Lang:

And so I think just people know the email list is where you're going to find those opportunities is something I think that kind of helps people engaged.

Brett Curry:

Yeah, that's great. Well, last thing I want to chat about as we wrap up here. You talked about the Hatch chili challenge. What is that? How did you execute that and how's that working?

Chris Lang:

Yeah, so we did a sweepstakes giveaway that did really well for us that we won last year and just kind of got the ball rolling. We did just another 10,000 giveaway two that my partner's flying out to give a check to the winner in person, the person's in Georgia, so it's going to fly out there this Friday and do that. And we just got to thinking, okay, what else can we do? And so we're going to give $10,000 away to, it's a contest, but basically one of the number one things people do, especially inspired how we just pour chili on burgers. People just started kind of tagging us and in and out and Whataburger and McDonald's or Wendy's, we were like, Hey, let's just make this a contest for people and get the winner 10,000. And so we just launched it and people are already kind of excited and already kind of posting about it. And I think it's something too that it's just helped builds network effects and what are you eating? And I think that's what we kind of want to do is we want to create a burger revolution in America. I think that's something that we can have fun with. I

Brett Curry:

Love it, man. I love it. That is a noble cause right there at the Burger Revolution.

Brett Curry:

I like it. Chat around with it and have fun with it. Cool. And so then you're building social proof. You're building community network effect. You're also, you can use some of that content for ads. And so it's just a brilliant way to build community, leverage that for storytelling and ad growth as well. And so Chris, man, keep up with the good work. As I said, I'm a huge, huge fan. I'm a customer. I love the product. As I've introduced it to people in my family and to my community, they love it as well. And so I keep up with the good work. And now I didn't want to visit in person and see the farms and see what you guys are up to anytime I have to make that happen. But for those that are listening that're like, man, I got to try some of this stuff as well, how can they try some of your products?

Chris Lang:

Go to fresh chili co.com or you can find us on social at the Fresh Chili Co. And then I'm a sucker if you want to follow me at Crystalling Social and DM me, I might send you a gift card. We'll see.

Brett Curry:

He's a good man as far as that's concerned in all other areas. And hey, you are a really good follow on LinkedIn. Thank you. You talk about storytelling, you host a podcast as well. You share amazing clips. And so one, you got to go and just buy some fresh chilies, but also check out Chris's content, get on the newsletter, the email list, you'll get to see the marketing in action. That's a great way to learn as well, to check him out on LinkedIn. And then actually, do you want to plug your podcast, Chris, because you actually create some great content with your podcast.

Chris Lang:

Yeah, no, I appreciate it. We just launched Share Your Story. It's sponsored by SendLink, and it's something that's just about 40 days old, 45 days old, and there's response again, I'm sort of new to it, but as you kind of see, we're doing some things outside the studio. I do have studio, but today we were in Washington Park and New York City, and we were interviewing the street style interview kind of ads. Yep, yep, yep.

Brett Curry:

In on the street type thing.

Chris Lang:

Yeah. So this 21-year-old kid, his office is a park bench. And just to see the enthusiasm and the rawness of a 21-year-old entrepreneur, just really inspiring. So we're trying to just kind of share stories of how other people are kind of building in the space.

Brett Curry:

It's amazing. We'll link to that in the show notes. Check out Chris Lang on LinkedIn and all the socials and Fresh Chili Co as well. With that, Chris, thanks so much, man. This was awesome. Thanks for taking the time. Yeah, thank you. Absolutely. And as always, appreciate you tuning in. We'd love to hear more from you. If you found this show inspiring, share with a friend, share with your network, that would mean the world to us. And with that, until next time, thank you for listening.

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