Can Your Company Do That?

I was reading a very funny interview on the Huffington Post today with the founders of J&D’s Foods – the people directly responsible not only for the huge numbers of bacon-flavored food products now hitting the U.S. market, but also for the explosion of what we might call “bacon awareness” among consumers in most of the Western World. You’ve probably seen at least a few of their products advertised by now – they’re the people responsible for Bacon Salt, Baconaise, bacon croutons, bacon air freshener, bacon-flavored popcorn, bacon-flavored personal lubricant, bacon-flavored lip balm, bacon-flavored envelopes, and dozens of other bacon-flavored, bacon-shaped or bacon-oriented products…

Yes, I did say bacon-flavored personal lubricant. No, they’re not kidding…

The company’s story is worth reading for anyone with an interest in small business development or entrepreneurship, in the sense that the founders appear to have started with a good idea and a lot of chutzpah (or cojones, for our Spanish-speaking readers) and nothing else; they got their initial capital off an “America’s Funniest Home Videos” prize and had to get some food scientists to help them out of pure kindness (and probably because it was an interesting application of biochemical research) to get their formulations down. It’s also worth considering because despite the name, none of these products contain any bacon – or any animal products whatsoever; the Bacon Salt is vegetarian and kosher, in fact. But from a promotional standard, it’s still the personal lubricant at which an aspiring entrepreneur ought to take a closer look…

As previously noted, this completely outrageous product really exists, and has sold very well for the company – but it started as a stunt that was as much a practical joke as an advertising gimmick. J&D’s was launching one of their primary-line products, the Bacon Crouton; a perfectly sound and very tasty consumer product (at least, if you like bacon and croutons), but not one that was likely to draw any particular media or public attention. Purely as a joke, the company announced that they would also be releasing a bacon-flavored personal lubricant product at the same time, figuring that a small number of people would be amused by the fake product launch promotion, and it might attract a little more attention to the croutons. Instead, they got over 5,000 volunteers signing up just to beta-test the lubricant. This is essentially what had happened with their development of bacon-flavored lip-balm (which wasn’t supposed to be a serious product offering either), but the personal lubricant seems to have caught more people’s imaginations…

Now, I’m not suggesting that your business can get away with anything as outrageous as repurposing some of its ingredients (or products) as personal lubricant, or even that you would want to try. I’m not even suggesting that you should try anything as off-the-wall as trying to raise capital for your new venture on a game show, let alone trying to explain to a rabbi that a product called “Bacon Salt” is actually kosher (or vegetarian). I am calling this story to your attention because it demonstrates what can happen when you stop assuming that something can’t possibly work and start asking what would happen if it did work. Because while it is certainly true that marketing, chemistry, product development and capital acquisition all require massive amounts of hard work, the critical factor is always going to be your ability to come up with a new product (or service) concept, and your willingness to try to make it happen…