Hitting The Spot

If you want to break into a cultural niche, leave your sledgehammer at home--bring your ballet slippers instead.

"You can't just take your product somewhere and try to force it on everyone," says Chip Hearn, COO and owner of Peppers, a Dewey Beach, Delaware-based hot sauce company that generates approximately $1.2 million in annual sales via the Internet, catalogs, retail stores and a restaurant.

Hearn learned the hard way not to make any market assumptions. At a recent international food expo, he wanted to gain entry points in major island groups such as the Bahamas. Inspired by the abundance of dishes made with fresh fruit, he developed a new fruit-based sauce. The buyers at the fair hated it but told him they liked hot sauces. He whipped out one of his several hundred existing sauces and promptly found a brand-new market. Says Hearn, "You've got to be prepared to adapt, to think on your feet, and to try to find the best angle to make the sale."

This article was originally published in the March 1999 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: Hitting The Spot.