Bacon salt

J&D's Down Home Enterprises, also known as J&D's Foods, is an American company based in Seattle, Washington, that produces bacon-related products such as Bacon Salt and Baconnaise. The company was founded in 2007 by Justin Esch and Dave Lefkow who used a $5,000 prize winning from America's Funniest Home Videos as start capital to launch the business. J&D's used an unconventional, yet successful advertising campaign consisting of on-line Social network services and personal telephone calls to the media to get stories written about them resulting in selling 20,000 jars of their initial product, Bacon Salt, in their first five months of operation. The business continues to be successful and has since added several new products to the Bacon Salt range.

The company launched sales on July 16, 2007, when entrepreneurs Justin Esch and David Lefkow started selling Bacon Salt, a product that was conceived by Esch while considering the virtues of the drink Mitch Morgan, which is composed of a shot of bourbon and a piece of fried bacon as a garnish. After registering a trademark and purchasing an internet domain, Esch and Lefkow started producing Bacon Salt. They funded their company with a $5,000 loan from Lefkow's 3-year-old son Dean, who had won the money on America's Funniest Home Videos for a video in which he smacks his dad with a hit while playing T-Ball. Bacon Salt became a hit, and as of 2007 was sold in all 50 states and 26 other countries. Esch and Lefkow have since repaid the $5,000 loan. Additional financing was provided through the sale of series B stock by outside investors in 2011.

Initially Esch and Lefkow had no advertising budget and were met by resistance from food brokers and distributors who were unwilling to take a chance on an unknown product. Instead of traditional advertising, they sent jars of Bacon Salt to editors of food blogs and set up online profiles for Bacon Salt for online communities including MySpace and Facebook. The technique worked, Esch and Lefkow received 800 orders in the first week for their three varieties (original, hickory, and peppered) which included an order from a customer in Texas for 36 jars. They sold 20,000 jars between their opening in July 2007 and November 2007. In addition to online marketing, Esch and Lefkow spent an average of 30 minutes per day phoning the media, and explaining why they should do a story about them.

...
Wikipedia