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.

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Sponsored by OMG Commerce - go to (https://www.omgcommerce.com/contact) and request your FREE strategy session today!

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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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Connect With Brett: 

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thebrettcurry/ 
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@omgcommerce 
• Website: https://www.omgcommerce.com/ 

Relevant Links:

• Chris’ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrislangsocial/
• Fresh Chile Website: https://freshchileco.com/

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Past guests on eCommerce Evolution include Ezra Firestone, Steve Chou, Drew Sanocki, Jacques Spitzer, Jeremy Horowitz, Ryan Moran, Sean Frank, Andrew Youderian, Ryan McKenzie, Joseph Wilkins, Cody Wittick, Miki Agrawal, Justin Brooke, Nish Samantray, Kurt Elster, John Parkes, Chris Mercer, Rabah Rahil, Bear Handlon, JC Hite, Frederick Vallaeys, Preston Rutherford, Anthony Mink, Bill D’Allessandro, Jeff Oxford, Bryan Porter and more

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.

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?

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.

What lake? And tell the folks where

you are so everyone can be jealous.

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.

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?

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.

There in New Mexico. What

part of New Mexico is that?

Yeah, so actually the southern

Interesting.

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. 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.

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.

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.

From.

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. 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?

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.

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?

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.

Yeah, I mean, I've been buying

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.

Meta, a lot of distinct seasons.

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.

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.

Exactly.

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.

Exactly. Exactly.

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?

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.

We.

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.

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,

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.

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.

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.

So.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Anything worth doing does.

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.

As flashy, not as sexy,

not as enticing or not as

throw a switch and get results.

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.

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.

Yeah.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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?

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.

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.

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.

So we have to be hatch green

chilies equals fresh chili company.

That's what you're trying to create.

Exactly. And I think too,

also not discounting hot

honey, spicy ketchup.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

And.

Then any powerful lessons from

email and SMS that have helped

fuel that stable growth for fresh chilies?

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.

Communication.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

Love it, man. I love it.

That is a noble cause right there

at the Burger Revolution. 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?

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.

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.

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.

In on the street type thing.

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.

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.