Jan 3, 2021
In this episode, I interview Renae Bunster, the Founder and Global President of Bunsters Hot Sauces. An ex Television journalist, Renae fell in love with hot sauces while in Mexico in 2011. She couldn’t find anything hot enough back in Australia so she started making her own at home in 2012 aged 34. She now sells her hot sauce all around Australia and in America through Amazon and is about to sell her chili vodka in Russia. The business’ sales started at $83,000 in the first year and then doubled every year to crack $1 Million in 2019. With one to five full-time employees, they made 35 tonnes in one week last year through a contract factory, which will double this year.
Initially self-funded, they started dipping into mortgage and did a KickStarter pre-sales crowdfunding in 2015 to sell $200,000 of hot sauce and last year took on angel investors who then suggested an equity crowdfund. In mid-2020, they raised $2 Million from the crowdfunding. She approached two great mentors who are very successful female business owners. She felt she had succeeded when she made a bottle of Vodka with “Shit the Bed” on it and raised $2 Million in crowdfunding. Renae believes the hardest thing in growing a small business is finding customers when you have no budget. She says the one she would tell herself on day one of starting out in business is, “This is going to be huge, but only if you have fun and laugh the whole time, and don’t take it too seriously” Ladies and gentlemen, Shit the Bed creator, Renae Bunster. Enjoy the episode.
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Music from https://filmmusic.io "Cold Funk" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com). License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/