Irrational Persistence. Zilko Dave

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      Dave Zilko

      Irrational Persistence

Dave Zilko

FORMER VICE CHAIRMAN OF GARDEN FRESH

IRRATIONAL PERSISTENCE

SEVEN SECRETS THAT TURNED A BANKRUPT STARTUP INTO A $231,000,000 BUSINESS

      Cover image: ©iStock.com/pearleye

      Cover design: Wiley

      This book is printed on acid-free paper.

      Copyright © 2016 by Dave Zilko. All rights reserved

      Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

      Published simultaneously in Canada

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      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

      Names: Zilko, Dave, author.

      Title: Irrational persistence: seven business secrets that turned a crazy

      startup into a #1 national brand / Dave Zilko.

      Description: Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, [2016] | Includes index.

      Identifiers: LCCN 2015043063 (print) | LCCN 2016000691 (ebook) |

      ISBN 9781119240082 (hardback) | ISBN 9781119240099 (pdf) |

      ISBN 9781119240105 (epub)

      Subjects: LCSH: Zilko, Dave, 1963- | Garden Fresh (Firm) | Snack food

      industry – United States. | Businesspeople – United States – Biography. |

      Entrepreneurship. | Success in business. | BISAC: BUSINESS & ECONOMICS /

      Entrepreneurship.

      Classification: LCC HD9219.U64 G379 2016 (print) | LCC HD9219.U64 (ebook) |

      DDC 338.7/66458 – dc23

      LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015043063

TO MY PARENTS,DON AND ARLEEN, WHO INSTILLED IN THEIR CHILDREN THAT ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE IN THIS LIFE AS LONG AS YOU BELIEVE YOU CAN DO IT. AND TO MY SONS, CHRISTIAN AND ALEX, IN THE HOPE THAT THIS DEMONSTRATES HOW TRUE THAT IS

      “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not: unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘press on’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”

Calvin Coolidge

      PROLOGUE

      WHAT’S IT LIKE TO TAKE A BANKRUPT startup and eventually sell it to a Fortune 500 company for almost a quarter of a billion dollars?

      This is a different type of business book, one that tells a story – an “Only in America” story.

      Just not from the place in America you’d expect.

      “Salsa from Detroit? You’re kidding, right?”

      We’d hear it all the time, and frankly I couldn’t blame anyone for asking the question. It’s counterintuitive at the very least and borders on irrational.

      I’d love to say the idea was born out of some ultra-chic marketing incubator. Where some bold and brilliant entrepreneurs concluded launching a fresh salsa company from Detroit was “so crazy it just might work” and “all we’ll need now is a slick ad and PR campaign and we’ll be on our way.”

      But to be honest, we’re not that clever.

      Instead, Garden Fresh Gourmet was born in the back of a small bankrupt restaurant just outside of Detroit when a 44-year-old man named Jack Aronson pulled out a five-gallon bucket and in 15 minutes developed a recipe for fresh salsa.

      “I was just hoping to pay my electric bill,” Jack has since told me.

      When I first met Jack and his wife, Annette, five years after he made that first batch of fresh salsa, they were still struggling, although no longer bankrupt. I, however, technically could not say the same; 11 years earlier I had founded my own food company on a $2,500 credit card loan, and let’s just say things were not going too well for me.

      Soon after I met the Aronsons they invited me to be their partner and, despite our humble origins, Garden Fresh is now the largest brand of fresh salsa in the United States with-annual revenues well in excess of $100 million.

      And Garden Fresh was just sold to the Campbell Soup Company for $231 million.

      We all want to live the life we’ve imagined for ourselves. For most of us doing that does not just happen; we have to make it happen. Doing so requires sacrifice – often tremendous sacrifice. Sacrifice unimagined in common hours.

      I refer to those 11 years between the time I founded my company on that $2,500 credit card loan and the time I met the Aronsons as my “lost decade.” And Jack and Annette had had a couple of lost decades of their own before we became partners. On top of that, it took us another decade to fully realize the company Garden Fresh would eventually become.

      We persisted against seemingly insurmountable odds in a fashion that can only be described as irrational.

      Just as salsa from Detroit is irrational.

      It’s not lost on me, though, that a lot of people work hard, are determined, yet don’t make it, don’t end up living the life they’ve imagined for themselves. Very often there’s a missing strategic link that is the difference between success and failure.

      Failure’s in vogue right now, and for good reason; failure is important in a lot of ways; we all learn more from our mistakes than we do from anything else. We should not fear it. Thus, I’m fine accepting it, even embracing it, as a necessary speed bump on the road to success.

      But I’ve done it enough in my life to confidently state: failure’s overrated.

      Another thing I can confidently state: it’s