We recently connected with Jake Newcomb and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Jake, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?
As soon as I turned 16, which is the legal age to begin working, my dad told me it was time to find a job. I got a job flipping burgers at a Wendy’s in a small town in Maine. I was never handed anything at an early age, so my work ethic grew out of that, naturally. My family relied on food stamps and Hamburger Helper to get by, so it was just sort of expected that I had to work hard for everything I needed. It’s a common trait that New Englanders, especially Mainers, have a strong work ethic. I naturally adopted that mentality from my environment and just gave every job my all. After leaving high school, I wanted to be 100% independent, not relying on family or anyone else to keep me afloat, so I took on side hustles and multiple jobs to make ends meet.
As I got older, I found a passion for music and worked in record stores for years. I attempted to start a record label, which essentially failed, but I learned the basics of creating a web store, graphic design, and shipping orders—skills I later found useful for Newks.
Eventually, I decided to go back to college after dropping out four separate times from multiple universities. I earned a bachelor’s degree in Audio Engineering and immediately moved to Portland, Oregon, for an audio internship in 2012. I worked extremely hard as an audio engineer for multiple companies, as well as a freelance engineer.
When the pandemic hit, it left me unemployed, with all my gigs canceled. That’s when I shifted my focus to my own project, Newks. I started a Kickstarter campaign to get started and it was funded within a day. This is when I realized I now had to come through with my promises to all the Kickstarter backers, and Newks was born. I decided to put all the energy I used to give to other people’s projects into my own. I believe that’s a big reason why Newks became successful. I took a leap of faith, leaving the security of my ‘career’ and forged a new path, determined to give it everything I had.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
We are a hot sauce company dedicated to creating diverse, unique, all-natural, and delicious flavors. Over the past five years, we’ve developed a range of sauces, from mild to very spicy, each one having it’s own world of flavor. Our customers often say that they love how different and unique our sauces are, which means the world, because we’ve put in endless hours of dialing in each flavor to do just that. Our initial goal was to create an amazing product line, and now that we feel we’ve achieved that, we’re shifting our focus from product development to building a brand and culture that connects more deeply with our customers.
We want to create stronger relationships with our customers, staff, and community by creating a culture that resonates with them. We want to build a brand people are excited to be part of. To me, this is some of the most rewarding parts of owning a small business. We get to create our own world.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Get Organized
In the beginning, we were flying by the seat of our pants on almost everything—production, inventory, scheduling, and accounting. We were really sloppy from the get go. I had zero business experience, so I had to learn as I was going. Thankfully, over time, we put systems in place (thank you, Google Sheets) to help scale production, track inventory, schedule staff, manage payroll, pay taxes, and more. We rely heavily on D2C (direct-to-consumer) events, and during our busiest months, we can average more than one event per day for three to four months straight. The only way we can manage that is through strong communication and having a reliable team (we have an amazing staff) to take of everything on the schedule.
Keep It Simple and Grow Slowly
When Newks first started and I realized there was demand for our hot sauces, it was super exciting. I was selling out of product quickly and couldn’t keep up with demand. It was the first time I realized that my creative efforts could turn into a full-time business. I got ambitious and wanted to scale quickly. I had big visions —national brand status, being featured on ‘Hot Ones’, getting our product into Whole Foods and New Seasons nationwide. But I quickly realized those things take time and aren’t as important as I once thought they were. If those opportunties come to us in time, great, but I was putting too much pressure on myself to ‘succeed’ by hitting these milestones. I’ve learned that slow, organic growth is healthier for the business. Taking on too much too soon can actually be harmful. We’re now at a stage where the business pays the bills, provides part-time jobs for our friends, and still has room to grow. Slow growth is the way.
Accepting Challenges / Failures
It sounds cliché, but we’ve encountered numerous challenges that might lead others to throw in the towel. At times, I look around and notice how many businesses that launched alongside us have since closed their doors. It’s a bummer, but it’s also completely understandable. Continuing in the face of the many obstacles that come with growing a small business can be super hard. Throughout the years, we’ve had our share of production issues, unexpected legal problems, costly learning curves, and difficult business situations that have been super hard hard to navigate. There have been moments when I’ve come close to burnout, or times when I’ve thought “If this doesn’t make me quit, nothing will”. During those times, I’ve learned it’s super important to chill the hell out and take a step back. Count your blessings and take a breath. Staying emotionally stable amid the many difficult times is essential. You are not your business. Try to be less attached to expectations. When the big challenges come, I like eto approach them like intricate puzzles. They can be super hard to figure out, but it’s very satisfying to solve and overcome them and emerge on the other side with a stronger business.
Looking back over the past 12 months or so, what do you think has been your biggest area of improvement or growth?
We’ve gained a lot more customers and spread a wider net. We’ve cooked and moved more sauce than ever before. We’ve participated in multiple events in NYC this year, which helped us spread the word to a whole new part of the country. We’re ending the year with an event in LA, where we are going to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Chocolate Skateboards, who we were lucky to collaborate with on a special edition hot sauce bottle this year. We also got funded to have our very own brick and mortar store downtown Portland called NEWKS WORLD, which will be open from Nov 15th to Dec 31st. The store will showcase all of our products and a lot of artwork and merch that we’ve made with so many talented artists over the years. We feel like we are ending the year stronger than ever before, and are really looking forward to what comes next.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.newkssauces.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/newks_hot_sauce
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/newkshotsauce
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@NEWKS_HOT_SAUCE
- Other: thanks!
Image Credits
Full line of Newks Bottles by Jonathan Moore.
Single Bottle of Newks by James Bianchi.
All other photos provided and owned by Newks.
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
