Be bold, be daring, be weird. That’s what these companies did and have yet to look back.
Sometimes there are Businesses That Are So Weird. The product they sell is so different that the common sense point of view is that they’ll fail. This year, however, an unusually large number of companies that fall into the “weirdo” category are succeeding.
J&D’s Foods, Kings Of Bacon
Americans love bacon. Last year we bought more than 550 million pounds of it. Some people, however, love bacon more than anything else. That’s the case with Justin and Dave, two friends who co-founded J&D’s Foods. They asked themselves, “Why should bacon be the only thing that tastes like bacon?” The duo developed and launched bacon-flavored salt. According to the founders, they sold 6,000 jars of Bacon Salt during the first five days of sales despite having no marketing or sales budget. People from 15 countries and 25 states bought it. In addition to online sales, the company’s products are now distributed through major retail chains in the U.S. and the U.K.
The company now has a full line of bacon-flavored foods, including popcorn, Baconnaise (bacon-flavored mayonnaise), bacon dip and bacon dressing. That wasn’t enough for these two, however; they also sell bacon lip balm, bacon-flavored envelopes and even bacon shaving cream.
And just how did J&D’s raise its seed capital to launch the company? It turns out that Dave’s then 3-year old son was playing with a wiffle ball and Dave decided to video tape it. He submitted the video to America’s Funniest Home Videos and, when they won, the $5,000 prize was the seed money for J&D’s.
Learn more about Mike Periu
Mike works with small businesses to teach them about finance and management. He started Proximo, LLC, a company that offers small business education and training services focused on finance and technology.
Periu also writes for OpenForum, Yahoo! Finanzas the Huffington Post contributor.
Mike went to Georgetown University where he studied Finance and International Business. He also serves on the Board of the Council for Economic Education and was a Fellow at the Kauffman Foundation.
