Who Wants $300 Hot Sauce?
Here's how an enthusiast turned his passion for fiery condiments into a $200,000 online business
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Hot sauce enthusiast turned entrepreneur Nick Lindauer is on fire. In 2001, while still in college, he launched the online store Sweat 'N Spice out of his Springfield (Ore.) apartment. He sold a few dozen types of hot sauces, packaged each order by hand, and shipped everything from his local post office, barely eking out a profit during his first year of operation.
Today, Lindauer sells over a thousand products from some 300 manufacturers. His inventory goes beyond sauces to include seasonings, relishes, and snacks with clever names, oddly-shaped collectible bottles, celebrity-endorsed offerings, along with concoctions that are so blisteringly hot customers must sign a liability waiver upon purchase.