His Product Wouldn't Sell... Until He Changed This

0:00From Entrepreneur Media, this is Problem Solvers, a show in which entrepreneurs do what entrepreneurs do best, solve unexpected problems in their business. We were completely wrong. And I'm just like, it's not selling. It was like we have to start from scratch. I'm Jason Pfeiffer, the editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur Magazine.

0:21You ever hear a story that someone tells you about someone's business and a decision that they made and how it changed everything, and you just think, I need to know everything about that? That whole thing sounds fascinating. Well, this happens to me all the time. It's a good, I have a podcast so I can call these people up. and in this case, let me tell you this story that I heard. A friend told it to me while I was hiking in Boulder, Colorado many months ago. It goes like this. There's a guy, and he puts out a product, and it's called chicken chips. What are chicken chips? Chicken chips are, like, imagine a potato chip, but it's made out of chicken meat, but it feels and tastes and sort of snacky like a potato chip.

1:07And so he puts out chicken chips, gets it into Whole Foods, and nobody buys it. Nobody buys it. But then he makes a change. The change is that he stops calling it chicken chips, and he starts calling it protein chips. And suddenly, everyone's buying it. This fascinated me because I had all sorts of questions. Maybe the same questions you have. Like, how did he ever decide to put a product out called Chicken Chips. And what was up with this name change? Why protein chips? And how was that the difference maker? And how did he figure out that that would be the difference maker? The reason in particular that I am fascinated by this is because it seemed to be a perfect example of something that I call building the bridge of familiarity.

1:54I have a whole chapter on this in my book, which is called Build for Tomorrow. And the bridge of familiarity idea is this. If you have created something new and you want to introduce that to the world, to people who are unfamiliar with this thing that you just created, you cannot start by just telling them about how amazing your thing is. You can't say, this new thing is good for you. And the reason for that is because people don't like new things. What they like are better versions of old things. So what you have to do is you have to start with them. What are they already familiar with? What are they already comfortable with?

2:25What language do they use? What concepts do they like? And, you know, chicken chips is very unfamiliar. Protein chips sounds much more familiar. And I wanted to know, well, how did this all happen? Let us see in real time a bridge of familiarity being built, which is to say that You start by building the bridge, not from you to them, but from them to you. And so I went on a quest to find the chicken chips guy. It took a lot of Googling. Eventually, I found his email address. We traded emails. We talked a couple times, and we scheduled a time to chat. Any road noise right now? No, not hearing anything.

3:10All right, that's beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. This is Jason, busy guy, coming to you from a car in Lexington, Kentucky. My name's Jason Wright. I'm the founder of Wild Chips. I am from South Carolina, and that explains my accent. And Jason, to my great delight, was happy to tell me this whole story. Where the idea for chicken chips even came from, why he called them chicken chips, why they didn't sell, and what finally got them moving. This is a fascinating conversation and just a great insight for anybody who is trying to communicate what they have created to other people. If you want to bring something new into the world, you better learn the lesson that Jason learned the hard way.

3:52So that is what we're talking about on this episode of Problem Solvers coming up after the break. Do you know someone who has never listened to a podcast? Might sound crazy to you and me, people who love and make podcasts, but those people are out there. And if we want the podcast industry to grow, and we do, well, then we need to turn those non-podcast listeners into podcast listeners. So here's an idea. What if they just heard one, heard one really good podcast to show them how great podcasts can be to listen to? Well, they might convert and then listen to another and another. Tink Media thinks this is the case.

4:37And in April, they are launching Adopt a Listener. They're asking you, you, listening to this podcast right now to find someone who says, ah, podcasts aren't my thing, and give them a thoughtful recommendation, something that will get them hooked. Now, how are you going to do that? Well, how about this? Go to tinkmedia.co slash adopt. Again, tinkmedia.co slash adopt to sign up for Adopt a Listener, find resources, and learn how you can get involved. This podcast, Problem Solvers, is a proud supporter of Adopt a Listener. We want to see podcasts grow. So see the other participating shows at tinkmedia.co.adopt.

5:24All right, we're back talking with Jason Wright of Wild Chips. And I have to say, after this episode, after you listen to this episode, you're going to start to see his protein chips, not chicken chips, but they are chicken chips, but they're called protein chips. You're going to start to see them everywhere, like I now do, because they're all over the place now, but they weren't to start. So here it is. We're just going to take it from the top where I'm just going to ask Jason the most pressing of these questions that I have, but I promise the full story will reveal itself. Question number one is, so tell me the origin of chicken chips as both a product and as a term.

6:08Yeah. So early on, you know, we basically called the product what it was. So we started, you know, making chips from chicken and, you know, we were eager to get them to market. We didn't do a ton of like research. We basically identified, you know, and called the product exactly what it was. It was chips made of chicken breast, but we called it chicken chips. And we launched that in 2018, late 18, early 19 into Whole Foods. And we quickly found out and realized that people didn't really understand what a chicken chip was. And to go even further, they thought that, you know, we were using bad parts to make chicken chips because in those days we were not talking about, you know, chicken breast and bone broth and egg.

6:57Those items were currently being used to make the product. We just didn't really understand it. And, you know, to go a step further, chicken chips have been around for a long time in the pet industry. And, you know, we really didn't do the proper research to know that. So right out of the gate, you know, we obviously, you know, saw that we had a problem doing demos at Whole Foods. You know, people just were very confused of chicken chip. And I mean, you have this product, you get it to market without doing enough market research on how people could understand it. But I assume this thing is good.

7:41It's good enough to get into Whole Foods. So people like it if you can get them to taste it, right? I mean, there was a, there was clearly a discrepancy between the product and the marketing. But were you worried that this was a problem with the product itself? No, you know, we were doing so many demos at the time because we really believed that people had to try the product to understand the product. And it worked. People would try the product and they were like, oh, I get it. But we knew that, you know, we were not going to be able to demo our way to success. You know, as you expand on a natural, you're not going to be able to demo your way through grocery and mass.

8:18So we knew right then we had an identification issue. We had to solve, you know, what we would call the product. And, you know, when you launch something that's never been done before, order comes with a lot of learnings, you know, and that was just one, you know, small learning. And I've got many of them along the way was this, you know, kind of hierarchy of how do you talk about the product and what do you eventually call the product? Yeah. So before we get into that, I think we also just need to add a little more context here because this is something, like you said, that's never been done before.

8:53People are not familiar with it. The idea of chips made from chicken. Can you explain why this exists? Why did you start making chips out of chicken? You know, Wild started out as a meat-based protein bar. A lot of people don't realize that. And truthfully, meat-based protein bar was not a category. It was not something we all thought. I say we. Crave Jerky launched a meat-based protein bar. We launched it. Epic had launched the meat-based protein bar. And truthfully, there was no category and Epic really owned the small segment. So I was thinking of how was I going to save Wild? And I was kind of in a dark place.

9:38You know, I was depressed. I turned as my Southern roots, I turned to comfort food and I was eating potato chips. And the whole time I had this, you know, meat on my mind because we had been making bars, protein bar out of meat. And one day I had this kind of eureka moment and, and I, you know, kind of this popped in my head and I said, could I replace, can I replace the potato with chicken breast? And I thought, you know, this is something I could get behind. This would be high protein. It would be filling unlike potato chips, which is just empty calories. And so I just got very gung ho about it and went down a rabbit hole and started working towards seeing if I could do it.

10:19And that's really where the idea sparked from. And I'm the type of person that once I get something, you know, in my head, I just got to follow. I can't stop thinking about it. And this was occasion where I just kept going down the rabbit hole. I started working with Colorado State University, who has a real big meat science program. I also started working with a friend of mine, a food scientist in Boulder, Derek Spores. and basically we just went down the rabbit hole of trying to figure out how would you make a chip out of chicken breast and really you know had it not been for me my failure in the bar category I don't know that I would have immediately you know had this idea but I would remember that one day I was at the bottom of a potato chip bag you know and and I was like I can't keep doing this because I've always been somewhat of a healthy guy.

11:14I've always worked out. But I come from the South and I love comfort food. But as I got older, comfort food didn't necessarily love me. So anyway, it was just that moment that I was like, can I change this? Can I do something unique here? Well, that adds some really nice context to how you ended up putting this product out into the marketplace and into Whole Foods without having done the due diligence on whether or not the verbiage that you were using was going to connect with people. Because you already understood that there was a market for the meat-based protein bars, even if it was a small market.

11:56But there was a market, there was a consumer who you had been reaching. And you then came up with this idea, you were really excited about it, it worked for you. And so you saw it as a solution, you get it out there. So now let's take it up to this moment where you know people like it because if you can get them to taste it, then they buy it. But they are not going to pick it up on their own because, well, I don't know that you at that point had even figured out that the problem was the phrase chicken chips, but you knew something was the problem. So take me through how you identified it and then started to figure out how to fix it?

12:34Yeah. So, you know, the first, the first thing that, that, that I realized, and it was with my accent was people, I would say chicken chip, and you could draw the rest of the conclusion. People thought I was saying something else, especially with my accent. And I knew then I'm like, Oh man, this is not going to go over well. and then, you know, people would just kind of turn their nose up at it. Yes, they would try it, then they would buy it. But if I wasn't demoing it, and let's say I just went over to an event, right, or friends, and I just gave them a bag, immediately people would just turn, look at it, read the word chicken chips, and the expression on their face was not positive.

13:22So I knew we had a problem, but a lot of times the rule of thumb is call it exactly what it is. And I was struggling with like, what would we transition? What would we pivot to? And it took time for me to call it protein chips. You know, I, by default of the ingredient deck, we were delivering protein. So, you know, you would think, well, that's a natural fit to call it protein chips. But I was really nervous to call it protein chips because protein chips kind of had this definition or this precondition that protein equaled trade-off on taste and texture. I always tell the story, probably the only segment and the only category that benefited from more protein was yogurt.

14:09So Greek yogurt came out. Everybody loved it. It was creamy, but it was higher in protein. And that high protein is really what made that texture so thick and creamy. But I was very nervous that calling it protein chips was going to equal folks having a negative thought around our texture and our taste. And protein chips existed in the market. And protein chips were made by other companies using powder. And we were not using powder, we were using real ingredients. And, you know, if you've ever had a chip made of kind of these protein powders, they just, they fall apart in your mouth and they kind of are very powdery.

14:53And it's not a good experience. And I was very nervous about that. So you knew, just to fill in a gap here, when you were thinking this is a problem, the chicken chips phrasing, the first immediate solution that came to mind, even though you didn't love it for all those reasons, was protein chips, because that was that was a phrase that already existed, right? You didn't have to get introduced to that phrase that didn't come out of any kind of consumer surveying. You just thought, well, the obvious solution here would be protein chips. Yeah, I thought that that would be the, you know, we explored with wild chips, but nobody knew what a wild chip was.

15:35And, and so they're, you know, they're in light. Another problem was, okay, well, chicken chips, people think I'm not interested. Wild chips, they think, what is that? And so I, you know, I had to pivot, but I really had to get it right because if I didn't, I didn't think I could pivot a third time. So after back and forth, you know, internally, internal conversations, conversations with investors, you know, I decided, well, we're going to have to call it wild protein chips. But I will tell you that I was so scared about the texture and about a Me Too product. And what I mean by that, while our protein chips existed in the market, and so how was the consumer going to know that we were not just another protein chip?

16:25So we did a lot of deep dive on the brand, a lot of, you know, thinking about it. I remember in the summer of 2020, I spent countless hours with one of my business partners just going through how to describe the product. And what we were thinking at the time was that we were going to put on the back of the bag wild protein chips made from a half chicken breast, two egg whites, a cup of bone broth. And, you know, we wanted to describe why we were different as a protein chip versus the protein chip that we were setting beside. And so, you know, that kind of fast forward, we ended up going with something that was very unique and very convincing and easy to explain, but it took so long to get there.

17:21How did you get there and what exactly is it? you know we decided that on the front of the bag and we tested we we basically decided that we would just come up so we were doing some consumer research and people we had a couple layouts one was wild chips one was and then big flavor and one was wild protein chips big flavor and then under it it'd say crafted from chicken breast and then one was wild protein chips crafted from real ingredients, big, big, real ingredients that caught your attention. And then after that, it was check marks and it was check mark chicken breast, check mark egg white, check mark bone broth.

18:04So the idea spun from during the research, we talked to a lot of consumers and, you know, when we would talk about them, let them try it. We constantly heard, wow this is the chip that checks all the boxes and I got to thinking about that and so as a chip that checks all the boxes up until that point we were not using the checklist and so I said to our creative designer Eugene I said Eugene why don't we do check boxes beside chicken breast egg white bone broth now they're just not floating there and why don't we test that and see what people think and immediately people just understood it. So as soon as we put the checklist into the market, and again, we did test and we got great response back from that consumer testing.

18:55As soon as we put the check mark into the market, our velocities, you could just see it. You could see it over four weeks, eight weeks, 12 weeks, just started to climb. And what we were doing for the first time was we were driving trial. And then the product was very tasty and it was a repeat purchase was happening. But, you know, if we had a kept course of chicken chips, Wild would not be here today. And I've had so many of those moments, you know, where we were hit with challenge, big challenge, you know, and we had to overcome. And, you know, I think that's just bringing something to market that's never been done before.

19:37You know, I think it just comes with a bunch of challenges. those who crack the code i think you know there's big wins but there's definitely a lot of ups and downs you know bringing it to market and you know think thankfully we we chose to go protein and then chose to talk about crafted from chicken breast egg white and bone broth which i think you know led to where we are today for sure and what else can you share if anything about what that means where you are today. Are you still in Whole Foods? Have you expanded your distribution? I assume it sounds like, you know, sales and growth are far superior to what they were in the chicken chip days.

20:18But how can you quantify growth for us? Yeah, so basically, we're currently, you know, we're still in Whole Foods. I mean, that is our, you know, bread and butter. We started We actually are launching a large bag right now as we speak in Whole Foods where we have 13 SKUs and Sprouts, which is, you know, says a lot when a brand has that many offerings in one store. And now we are starting to expand into club and into grocery and into mass. And we are seeing really early success, you know, with people, one, needing a product that delivers on protein, but yet eats like real food and not a product that's, you know, made of powdery proteins.

21:04And then our flavor profiles, you know, I think we brought something to market where we paired dishes that you would see, you know, earlier with, with the chicken dish, where whether it's Nashville hot chicken, buffalo chicken, chicken and waffle, we have a barbecue coming. So I think uniquely we, you know, thought through what flavors we were going to that went with the product offering, you know, that we were bringing to market or we had created being a chip made of chicken breast. And yeah, I mean, we have early indications that, one, people understand the product now. And then two, our flavor profiles, we drive a ton of trial.

21:48Jason, final thought here, which is one of the reasons I was excited to talk with you was because when I first heard this story about going from chicken chips to protein chips and how that unlocked growth, it felt like a perfect little example of this thing that I talk about a lot, which is what I call building a bridge of familiarity. And I think that too many entrepreneurs and innovators often make this mistake in which they create something and they think it's fantastic. And as a result, they're not that aware of how confusing it might be to everybody else. And instead of what we typically do, which is create something and then try to figure out how to get it to people, I think that what we need to do is start with what are people already familiar with?

22:43What are they already comfortable with? And then therefore, how can we utilize that insight to build a bridge from them to us. Because people don't like new things. What they like are better versions of old things. And chicken chips sounds like a new thing. It's like they haven't heard of it. It's going to require them to rethink what they like about food. But protein chips is a better version of an old thing. Either they were familiar with the phrase protein chip, or they weren't familiar with the phrase protein chip, but they're still familiar with the concept of protein blank, protein shake, protein bar, whatever the case is.

23:19And so you were starting with something that people already were comfortable with. And that was what enabled you to bring them to you. I'm curious what you make of that theory and if you feel like it applies and what you've learned through this experience about how to connect with consumers. Yeah, Jason, I think you nailed it, man. And I think and I can, you know, I've experienced it. I've seen it. I think what entrepreneurs and people, you know, that, you know, creative minds, they do. We create this and it's so familiar to us. We are living and breathing it. And that's all we think about. But when you remove yourself and step back to, you know, a consumer or to an everyday shopper, they have a lot of things on their mind.

24:17And you have to be very clear on what you're offering. A smart, smart gentleman once told me people don't buy what they don't know. And it's 100 percent true. If they don't understand what it is, they don't buy it. And in today's world, especially with social media and everything that's going on, people have a lot of things to think about versus spending a lot of time to figure out what you're trying to sell or what your product offering is. and I think it's 100 % true that had I'd had the mindset I have today, beginning on day one, I would have thought through that a lot harder about let's give people something they already know and let's just twist it just a little bit.

25:07Let's make it better, but let's give them something they already know because having a product that's never been done before with a name that they've never seen before, it strikes so much curiosity in their head that they just get to a bad place or they can't figure it out and they just walk by it. So I think your philosophy is spot on. And I wish I'd known then what I know now. And I think I could have saved us some heartache, but I guess that's just part of the journey sometimes. And now, as you think about how to expand the company, you have this insight that can carry you forward. Yeah, and we're already thinking of that.

25:52And, you know, and I got to I got to say that, you know, that protein is is definitely still kind of in our head of what we would call, you know, we would lead with that, you know, with our with our next product launch. just for the identifier that people understand that. And, you know, we don't want to make it too complicated. Yeah. Jason, really appreciate you sharing your story. Jason, I really appreciate you having me on. This has been wonderful. And you do such a good job. And thank you for thinking of me and allowing me to come on and tell my story. That's all for this week. But hey, let's keep the conversation going.

26:33I write a newsletter called One Thing Better, where every week I give you one way to improve your work and build a career or company you love. You can subscribe for free at JasonPfeiffer.com slash newsletter, JasonPfeiffer.com slash newsletter. And if you do, you should definitely reply and say hello. I promise I'll get back to you. Problem Solvers is a production of Entrepreneur Media and comes out every Monday morning. So make sure you're subscribed so you do not miss an episode. Thanks to Deepa Shah for production. My name is Jason Pfeiffer. See you next week.