This is an awesome idea! I’ve been thinking about doing something similar in the hot sauce area. Any lessons/takeaways? Would love to know how you got your first customers.
1/ Have a flavor profile that's targeted towards a demographic you can reach. It's a much easier sell if you have access to an initial distribution channel and that demographic understands immediately what it might taste like.
2/ First customers: I started off with a couple friends, and then guessed where else I might find more like them. Kept trying until I found more. Don't start with paying for ads unless you're doing MVP testing pre-product.
3/ Have a unique flavor that they can't get anywhere else, but is legible (by reading the description, they can kinda imagine it). This may be tough, and your best bet is probably testimonies from your friends.
4/ Don't worry about scaling up initially. Take the time to make sure the product is something people actually want. Be skeptical and look for indicators, cuz your friends will lie to your face. Look for what they do, not what they say: spreading by word of mouth, repeat orders, unboxing on social media without you asking. etc. Work out the product kinks while you're small, because small problems also become big problems at scale.
5/ Work out the order fulfillment process and keep iterating on it. I find it really eats up time when I get an order that I'm not expecting to handle. Be organized and keep track of things.
There isn’t enough fermented hot sauces in New Zealand… not sure if the product gap is worthwhile where you are, or whether it interests you.
Perhaps you could become as great as ADAM REAL-LAST-NAME-UNKNOWN - chapter heading page 119: https://joeandjin.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/anthony-bourda...
“Why, of all his creatures, did He choose this loud, dirty, unkempt, obnoxious, uncontrollable, megalomaniacal madman to be His personal bread baker? How was it that this disgrace as an employee, as a citizen, as a human being-this undocumented, untrained, uneducated and unwashed mental case who's been employed (for about ten minutes) by every kitchen in New York-could throw together a little flour and water and make magic happen? And I'm talking real magic here, people. I may have wanted Adam dead a thousand times over. I may have imagined, even planned his demise-torn apart by rabid dogs, his entrails snapped at by ravenous dachshunds, chained to a pillory post and flogged with chains and barbed wire before being drawn and quartered-but his bread and his pizza crust are simply divine. To see his bread coming out of the oven, to smell it, that deeply satisfying, spiritually comforting waft of yeasty goodness, to tear into it, breaking apart that floury, dusty crust and into the ethereally textured interior . . . to taste it is to experience real genius. His peasant-style boules are the perfect objects, an arrangement of atoms unimprovable by God or man, pleasing to all the senses at once. Cezanne would have wanted to paint them-but might not have considered himself up to the job. Adam Real-Last-Name-Unknown may be the enemy of polite society, a menace to any happy kitchen, a security risk and a potential serial killer, but the man can bake. He's an idiot-savant with whom God has serious, frequent and intimate conversations. I just can't imagine what He's telling him-or whether the message is getting garbled during transmission.”