Irrational Persistence

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 ...