The Startup CPG Podcast

Matt Beaman
We're both dads and we got kids and we're cooking at home and we want to be feeding them the most nutritious things. It's like, it's hard to say, like, oh, you intentionally created this sauce to be extremely healthy and yada, but really it's just like, yeah, you're just doing your best as a parent with the knowledge that you have. And so, yeah, we don't use any sugar. There's no artificial flavors, there's no preservatives, no natural flavors. If we're sweetening the sauce to kind of balance the heat, it's kind of the good burn sweet spots. It's definitely leveraging things like dates or perhaps fruits, you know, really staying away from any kind of chemicals or preservatives. We're not into that.

00:51
Caitlin Bricker
Hey, everybody, this is Caitlin Bricker, managing editor at Startup CPG. We are back with another founder feature. Today I'm sitting down with Matt Beaman, co founder of Goodburn Sauce company. They're a regenerative, farm focused sauce company exploring rare and exotic chili peppers from around the world. Matt's journey took him from writing for kids television to marketing at Facebook to launching a hot sauce brand in Austin, Texas. He's also got a co founder named Carson Hoovestahl, who's a reggae dub producer who's been plant based for decades. Way before it was cool. And he knows his way around produce. He's worked in natural products retail for a bit. We're talking legendary pepper genetics. Why dates sweeten their sauces and how they're finding that perfect good burn zone in a crowded market. This is a hot sauce brand I think everyone needs to know about.

01:40
Caitlin Bricker
And as always, enjoy. Hey everybody. Welcome back to the startup CPG podcast. This is Caitlin and today I'm here with Matt Beaman, founder of Good Burn sauce company. Welcome to the show.

01:53
Matt Beaman
Thanks so much for having me. We're stoked to be here.

01:55
Caitlin Bricker
I'm excited to have you here. Typically, I'm like not the biggest fan of hot sauce because I don't like to be in pain when I eat my food, but this is a major exception for me. So I know I just gave a little hint, but before we get into it, can you just tell us what good burn is?

02:11
Matt Beaman
Sure. So we're based here at Austin, Texas and we are a regenerative, farm focused so sauce company with a deep love and fascination with exploring rare and exotic chili peppers from around the world. Yeah, that's sort of thing.

02:26
Caitlin Bricker
If I hadn't already tried Good Burn. I would have been sold on that. I don't think anybody's ever spun their hot sauce in the way that you just did. Before we get into the Good Burn world, tell me who Matt Beaman is.

02:41
Matt Beaman
Okay, so you started out writing for kids television, went to film school here in Austin, then went to Hollywood to work for Disney. So post that, started doing marketing and social media marketing for Disney for their films and video games and a lot of their other fun products. And from there jumped to Silicon Valley, working for Facebook, doing some of their brand marketing and brand management over on the west side from Austin, then came back to Austin to work for Facebook here in the Austin office. Once I found out they had one open, I was like, ooh, can I go back? So once I got back, you know, worked for them a little bit longer and then decided that I wanted to change things up and really kind of jump into the food and beverage world.

03:26
Matt Beaman
With that, I started my own boutique marketing agency called gridl. And yeah, I've been working with Cool. Mostly local to Austin, but some around the country. CPG brands and food and beverage brands, spirit brands, and even cannabis brands. So pretty wide range there. Yeah, so that's kind of my background pre building out Good Burn.

03:49
Caitlin Bricker
And I know that you're not a solo founder. You also have a partner in this business with you. Can you tell us a little bit about him?

03:55
Matt Beaman
Yes. So Carson Hoovestahl, also known as Mick Polish. Seriously, I'd say reggae dub producer, reggae dub artist, pretty well known around the reggae dub circles, which are kind of like a global network, which definitely kind of ties into our sauces to some extent, I think. And he also worked for natural grocers central markets and has a lot of, like, kind of focus around produce, organic produce sourcing, which kind of also like dovetails into the kind of ital cooking and, you know, stock Jamaican cuisine that he's certainly known for creating and cooking up. Yeah. So part musician, part produce man, as he might think.

04:37
Caitlin Bricker
Very cool. So it sounds like both of you have strong backgrounds which probably had Good Burn pretty set up for success from the start. You have on the cannabis side, is it marketing, growing, both.

04:53
Matt Beaman
So we have a genetics company, different partner of mine, called Landy Seeds, where we develop cannabis genetics. And that's also something we're doing with the peppers as well. We're also exploring some pepper varieties that are creating, which I started that breeding program last year and then, yeah, working with local cannabis brands and even a couple national cannabis brands for some of their consumer marketing as well, very cool.

05:16
Caitlin Bricker
And with Carson's background, too, the natural products industry background is really great. I mean, I would assume that gives you really cool perspective and bright perspective as to what the future can look like for Good Burn.

05:30
Matt Beaman
Definitely. Definitely. He's been in that for a long time. I think he's been. I don't want to misquote, but maybe vegan, you know, plant based. Before it was a thing. I mean, like, 30 years or something like that.

05:40
Caitlin Bricker
Wow. Before it was cool.

05:41
Matt Beaman
Before it was cool. Right. And so I think I attribute a lot of his knowledge of, like, our sauces and the depth and complexity and their use of a lot of this amazing produce from his knowledge, from that experience, you know.

05:53
Caitlin Bricker
Wow. I personally love dates. This is not a surprise to anybody who's listening right now. I was shocked to see that you were sweetening your hot sauces with dates. So tell me about the ingredients. Why did you choose the ingredients that you're using in your hot sauces?

06:09
Matt Beaman
Totally. So I think, you know, definitely speaking to kind of Carson's background and really using plants to the biggest capacity that we can, but also, like, we're both dads and we got kids and we're cooking at home, and we want to be feeding them the most nutritious things. I think, you know, it's like, it's hard to say, like, oh, you intentionally created this sauce to be extremely healthy and yada, but really, it's just like, yeah, you're just doing your best as a parent with the knowledge that you have. And so, yeah, we don't use any sugar. There's no artificial flavors. There's no preservatives.

06:41
Caitlin Bricker
No natural flavors either.

06:43
Matt Beaman
No natural flavors. You know, if we're sweetening the sauce to kind of balance the heat, you know, it's kind of the good burn to get it in that good burn, sweet spots. It's definitely leveraging things like dates or perhaps fruits, you know, really staying away from any kind of chemicals or preservatives. That's. We're not into that. So we're in Austin. We're kind of hippies. I don't know.

07:07
Caitlin Bricker
And what has it been like building the brand? I know that you first planted your seeds in 2020. Why then.

07:15
Matt Beaman
Yes. So I want to say it was the year before. You know, Carson and I were experimenting with maybe making sauces. I mean, he'd been doing it for years before and exploring growing chili peppers. The. The real story behind it, I'd say, like, maybe the kind of anchor story is you know, Carson had a very good friend named Papa Dreddy, and he's kind of this legendary Austin cosmic cowboy era, if you're familiar with that era of Austin, kind of Willie Nelson, outlaw country and that kind of thing. Character who played in a band called Alvin Crow and the Pleasant Valley Boys. He was a silversmith, a cyclist.

07:52
Matt Beaman
Just definitely could keep in Austin in the OG Keeping the Austin weird thing who went and traveled around the Caribbean and then came back to Texas and started propagating the Papa Dready Scotch Bonnet pepper, you know, originally from Jamaica. And so Carson's friends with him, of course, as I mentioned, like the reggae dub, the global scene there. And he's kind of this, like, character in the underground pepper growing, you know, online community and breeding world. And, I mean, you can go online right now and go buy some Papa Grady seeds, you know, and he's contributed his genetics to that community and so gave Carson those seeds at different points.

08:31
Matt Beaman
And when he passed away, you know, Papa Grady's good friend Josh sent Carson kind of like the Jurassic park, like, chipping away in the back of the frozen freezer, like the holy grail of original Papa Gretti seeds. And so we started growing those. And it was really through the lens of growing peppers as friends, you know, as a mission to have fun with and to spend time in the garden and for me personally to be learning more about living soil, which was a big thing for me and for kind of my journey in across food and across cannabis even. And so I kind of was into going deep, into becoming a big soil science and soil biology nerd.

09:14
Matt Beaman
So I was like, cannot wait to grow these special peppers in my backyard with this new soil that I just made my hand inoculated with all the amazing, you know, fungi. And I'll. They'll get me started on the soil stuff. It could get weird. They're very boring, very wriggly.

09:29
Caitlin Bricker
And I love that pepper is not code for cannabis. We're actually talking about pepper seeds.

09:35
Matt Beaman
That's correct. That's correct. I couldn't grow the cannabis in the backyard in Texas, unfortunately.

09:41
Caitlin Bricker
And it's very. The unearthing of these seeds is very Svalbard of you. Have you ever heard of Svalbard?

09:47
Matt Beaman
No. No. What's that?

09:48
Caitlin Bricker
It's a Norwegian global seed vault. So there are seeds. You're familiar.

09:54
Matt Beaman
I have heard of the Vault. I didn't know the name, but yes, Svalbard.

09:57
Caitlin Bricker
This is like back in the spice era days when they would cover these really cool topics. This one got me. I think it was in like 2017. And a global seed vault. They have these seeds underground from all over the world so that if there's devastation in an area of the world, they can pull seeds from the vault and regrow their plants. And unfortunately, countries have had to pull from the vault before. But very small bar to be.

10:25
Matt Beaman
Let me in there. I want to explore what you got in the pepper department.

10:29
Caitlin Bricker
All right, so regenerative growing, it sounds like it's weaved through your brand through and through. Can you tell me a little bit about the farmers that you're working with and how you choose what farms you want to grow the peppers on?

10:42
Matt Beaman
Totally, totally. So, yeah, speaking to the living soil thing that really has kind of bloomed into this what I would call like a regenerative agriculture movement with films like Kiss the Ground and Common Ground and just kind of more awareness around what happens when you actually use soil that's alive to grow vegetables and other foods. It's higher nutrient density. Obviously, there's no pesticides or other harmful things like that going on them. And you're really improving the environment as well by sequestering carbon and building that kind of soil biology. So it's good for the people, it's good for the planet, and it also is really good for, you know, the produce. It tastes great. It tastes even better. Real ones know. So, yeah, so for us and our farm partners, we really put a hard line in the sand and sad.

11:25
Matt Beaman
We don't really want to work with farms that are using any pesticides. And we would love to work with farms that are nerding out as much as we are about the soil biology and the living soil. And so we've been very lucky to find a few partners around Texas and also farm in California or Santa Barbara County. Shout out. Los Alamos Gardens. And here in Texas, Hopeful Farms is just fantastic. They're crushing it for us and honestly produce some of the most flavorful Scotch bonnet peppers we've had locally ever. So go Hopeful Farms.

12:00
Caitlin Bricker
And the Scotch Bonnet is the main ingredient in the Papa Dready sauce, if I'm not mistaken, right?

12:06
Matt Beaman
That's correct. That's the patented Papa Dready Scotch Bonnet pepper right there. A Texas Scotch Bonnet.

12:11
Caitlin Bricker
Yeah. I love it. So it really sounds like community is a driver for you in this brand. I've seen your write ups. You're constantly a community events. From what it feels like and looks like to me, what is the community that you're leaning on in Austin and beyond? What does that look like for you?

12:30
Matt Beaman
Sure, that's a lot. There's a couple of different circles there. I mean, I think certainly the regenerative farm movement and community, anybody that wants to invest in that movement is like, oh my gosh, like, let's be friends forever. Because I think that to me is probably one of the most important pieces of the whole project is, hey, if this thing gets big, that means we get to grow more peppers and support more farms and even hopefully have our own farm one day. Right. And really show, you know, and teach the next generation about the importance of that. And then so there's that community which is, there's, it's definitely growing here in Austin and around the country, of course. And then I would say, like, in Austin, our food scene is just going crazy here. So many amazing chefs and so many amazing restaurants.

13:11
Matt Beaman
And so there's lots of like killer chef level folks out here. And then as a result of that, people that are cooking at home, you know, and they're foodies, we have central markets, like love the central market. They're cooking at home. And I think they want to explore spicy cuisines from around the world. And they're already doing so through maybe takeout or going to out to restaurants. And it's, this is kind of a way for them to maybe bring some of that back home and have fun with cooking at home with these different sauces. And as a busy dad who, like, you know, Carson and I are both parents and we're cooking for our family, it's like cool. The kids are actually going to be excited about this meal.

13:48
Matt Beaman
There's, you know, a unique hot sauce and there's, you know, it's the Gen Z and like millennials are really seem to be pretty into hot sauce and so it's healthy. It's a way to get them excited about dinner that night and help us figure out what we're cooking that week. So maybe it's Jamaican jerk and maybe we're doing Italian with the San Marzano or Tex Mex with Arbol Primo kind of things.

14:08
Caitlin Bricker
So yeah, the Arbol Primo is my personal favorite. It's really good. It's really good. And I like that you're talking about parents cooking in the kitchen. It is nice to have a good looking bottle amongst the chaos of a parenting household. So you also talked about millennials and Gen Z's. Like, I think a lot of millennials and Gen Z's are more forward thinking when it comes to what's inside their products. So what's inside the bottle? We talked about the ingredients we talked about the regenerative aspect. Let's talk about the outside of the bottle, because your product, to me, I have yet to see it on the shelves in Massachusetts, but maybe this is a drop for somebody listening right now. It would stand out on a shelf if I saw that amongst the sea of hot sauces. That was very QVC of you.

15:00
Matt Beaman
Thank you. So we have some amazing talent here in Austin that helped us kind of get our initial brand together. Mason McPhee, got to give him a shout out for the OG bottle design. You can find him at. Hello. Maceman. That's like, his handle for his art. And also Elmer Gomer. So killer designer got us started years back, and now we work with an amazing designer, Zach Shapiro from San Francisco, who's a good friend of ours. Zach also has just taken over the helm for Goodburn. He's kind of like a creative director, and he's taken Goodburn's brand by storm. And so we're just very lucky to have these artists in our network.

15:41
Matt Beaman
I think part of it's, you know, my being having a marketing agency and being able to have access to those folks and for them to be interested in our brand and really elevate it. I pay all props to those designers. And, yeah, I mean, I think a couple of the things that we're trying to do with the bottle is definitely stand out. Give it that, like, old school, rustic, hummy vibe. But also, there's almost got a little bit of a Dr. Bronnery thing going on with the amount of chaos sometimes going on the bottle as well, which I also love and kind of speaks to, like, who Carson and I are as kind of like mad scientists, alchemist folks. So I think there's a couple components that are at work there, and then there's some little hints, like, on the papa you have.

16:22
Matt Beaman
You can maybe see here. This is like a Jamaican sound system reference there. So there's some little, like, Easter eggs in there as well that are kind of fun. And. Yeah, thank you so much. We do love the branding. We constantly get love for the branding, and it's.

16:35
Caitlin Bricker
Yeah, the packaging feels nice, too. Like, even the label has a good feel to it, which is also very different when you pick it up. It's a memorable experience, in my opinion.

16:47
Matt Beaman
Thank you. That's awesome. Yeah, I'd love to hear that feedback, too. Thank you.

16:50
Caitlin Bricker
Of course. I'm curious, when you're working with these designers, especially you, having your creative background, how do you approach the designers? Are you giving them pointers on how to work on your branding, or are you just saying, take this and run with it?

17:05
Matt Beaman
Oh, baby. So working with creative people is always fun and a challenge too, because I'm also creative, and so Carson's also super creative. So we got a lot of creative people in the mix. So it is definitely one of those things where I lean toward more. Like, okay, here's a micro brief or here's some, like, subtle direction, but really letting the artist kind of run wild and let their vision unfold. And then where it's like, necessary strategically for on the marketing end, where it's like uber necessary, you know, like, okay, can we maybe add this or can we contemplate that? Because there's a certain angle or a certain audience I think that would resonate with. Right. So really letting their creative vision run wild and then just kind of a little bit of direction here and there from cars to the eyes.

17:49
Caitlin Bricker
I like it. Speaking of direction, where is good burn carried right now as far as retail goes? I know you've had your farmers market days, which is great. So many brands have seen so much success, and you get that on demand feedback from your custom as you're sampling live in front of them. What does retail look like for you?

18:08
Matt Beaman
Yes. So we are very lucky. You know, Austin, like I said, this is amazing food culture. So we are in a couple boutique grocery stores around Austin, including Royal Blue Grocery. We're also in Noah Marion's, and we just recently got accepted into Central Market, so we are super stoked about that.

18:28
Caitlin Bricker
Congratulations. You're in good company over there.

18:31
Matt Beaman
Yes. I mean, I'm a total foodie myself, and I feel like that's like the Mecca, like, for me, at least here in Texas, you know, so that's really exciting. We're also going to. I want to give a shout out to Pullman Market in San Antonio. Those people are amazing. They're also very focused on sourcing locally regenerative farming. They've got a couple restaurants and they've just got Michelin stars. It's just an amazing community down there. So Pullman Market in San Antonio as well.

18:58
Caitlin Bricker
Very nice. And what does your direction look like when you're growing the brand? Do you have any shelves that you hope to be on? Are you growing slow? Do you want to go big? What does that feel like and look like to you at this stage?

19:10
Matt Beaman
Yes, this is the time we're about to get our first round of funding and go most certainly a takeover of Austin and then a Texas takeover, if you will. So for us, I Think it's more of a getting into the right places because we are a premium product. We're a little more extensive than a classic bottle of hot sauce. But we invest in the farm infrastructure and these rare pepper genetics that you can't buy commercially. Yeah. Just having super killer ingredients. And so we want to make sure that we're in places that we make sense. Right. Probably more like boutique grocery shops and places like that for kind of the first wave.

19:48
Matt Beaman
Certainly central market qualifies as that on a larger scale, but there's so many rad, like, super cool grocery stores or grocery setups popping up in bodegas that have killer products out there. So definitely want to be a part of that kind of wave as well, I think.

20:03
Caitlin Bricker
No doubt. Yeah. And I'm curious, too. In this environment right now, to me, I'm just a consumer. I'm not a brand founder. To me, the sauce space seems very saturated until you get to taste what's inside the bottles, and then you're like, okay, the market is actually not saturated. It's very different. There are so many different varieties and flavors out there. But there's something really cool happening right now. Brands are getting funding. They are getting investment in SaaS. What does that feel like for you as a SaaS founder?

20:37
Matt Beaman
Oh, yeah, that's great news to hear. I mean, especially with where we're at in the company and kind of like, okay, I think we're really going to take this thing seriously and take it to the next level. And right as this was happening, you have Va Tron and you have. What was the other one that just got.

20:51
Caitlin Bricker
I saw Maza. We were talking about Maza, you know,.

20:54
Matt Beaman
Get funding and just kind of just the whole space is blowing up right now, and you're seeing a lot of focus on the better for you versions of it and cleaner versions of hot sauce. And to your point, it's like, it seems like there's a ton of hot sauce. You go to the hot sauce shelf and you're like, oh, my goodness, there's so much going on here. Yeah. I mean, so much of what kind of good burn was meant to solve for was like, so many of these hot sauces aren't hot. So many of them are, like, way too hot. So it's like, where's that happy medium? Where's that, like, good burn zone? Right. That doesn't really exist. Like, kind of have the nuances of dialing in the heat, you know, that is not an easy thing to do.

21:33
Matt Beaman
And I mean, that's why it doesn't really exist to a large degree. And then, yeah, the exploration of, for us, these different culinary traditions and cultural cuisines we're seeing that happen. Like you said, with those two rad acquisitions and funding moments, people are really excited about exploring these global cuisines as well. And so for us, it's like, oh, this is fantastic, because we've already been doing this and through the lens of kind of the chili pepper as. As a focal point. So, yeah, it's just like, a lot of things coming together. The better for you component has always been a part of our DNA. The regenerative farm movement is, you know, catching more. Yeah, there's like, a lot of just simultaneous things moving in the same direction. So we're excited to be here.

22:17
Matt Beaman
We feel it's a great time for us to really start getting out there. And, yeah, it's good timing, right?

22:22
Caitlin Bricker
It definitely feels like good timing. And it's also really cool to see these brands, these big brands and even smaller brands. I mean, Mazat feels like it's kind of more of a small to midsize company for me. I don't know anything about their funding background or their how much money they're making, but they're very different from each other. And then Good Burn is also very different from those two companies that are getting funding right now. And I think you're positioned yourself very well with your name too, because I mentioned this earlier in our conversation. I don't like to be in pain when I eat. I look forward to putting Good Burn on my food because it's life affirming, first of all, because I'm like, okay, there's heat here. I'm feeling it.

23:06
Caitlin Bricker
But then I can move on with my day and not have to be traumatized by what I ate. My daughter's only 2, but I feel like if she were to want to dip her toes into the hot sauce pond, this would be a good company to start with.

23:23
Matt Beaman
Thanks. Yes. Totally with you on that. I do. Like, we love real spicy hot sauce, too, but really, like, we're dads. We want to make dinner that's healthy and fun and. And so there's a couple levels that you maybe don't want to go just on a normal dinner Wednesday night in lso.

23:40
Caitlin Bricker
Absolutely. Anything that you want to share with listeners. I always like to remind founders, it's not just you and I here. There are also retailers, there are consumers, there's distributors, there's investors listening right now. Anything that you want to share about your brand, about how it stands out in the market or any tidbits you want to leave with our listeners, man.

24:01
Matt Beaman
Okay, so I guess I can't give away any secrets, but we have a lot more fun global pepper inspired flavors coming soon. I can kind of maybe give you some hints around maybe where they're from, maybe regions, so. So we have some from South America, some from Africa, and even some from China. So lots of cool exploratory peppers and sauces on the map, some of which we're growing this year. So yeah, I think that'd probably be the main thing.

24:33
Caitlin Bricker
Good way to expand a set in retail, perhaps. Okay, well, before we end this, I'd love for other people to add good burn to their. What do you call it? Their pepper passport.

24:47
Matt Beaman
Yeah.

24:48
Caitlin Bricker
How can everyone find you online? Where are you at on Instagram? What's your website? Let us know.

24:55
Matt Beaman
Yes, Instagram's Goodburn Sauce Co and The website is goodburnsauce.com Perfect trip across the US and we have a cool little like three pack flight. You can travel with us around the world of peppers. Snap it up for the wholesale folks and retailers. We're on fair as well.

25:16
Caitlin Bricker
Just launched, so congratulations. I've heard great things about Faire from founders.

25:20
Matt Beaman
So you've liked it a lot so far? It's been great.

25:23
Caitlin Bricker
Good. Sounds like a great space to be in. Hopefully you get discovered by more mouths soon and it's been great chatting with you and I hope to catch Carson next time.

25:32
Matt Beaman
Awesome. Let's do it. Thanks so much, Katelyn.

25:35
Caitlin Bricker
Cool. Thanks, Matt. Thanks for being here.

25:37
Matt Beaman
Take it easy.

25:37
Caitlin Bricker
See ya. CPG BFFs. We've now arrived together at the end of another episode of the Startup CPG podcast. As you may know, we're not just the top globally ranked CPG podcast. We're a community of tens of thousands of CPG founders and experts. And you should join us if you haven't already. Head to startupcpg.com to sign up. You'll get an invite to our Slack community, hear about events near you, and get access to opportunities that connect you with buyers, investors and other brands. It's free. So what are you waiting for? I'll see you in Slack and in real life. Thanks for listening.