His 6-Figure-a-Month Side Hustle Landed in Costco: Low and Slow

This Side Hustle Spotlight Q&A features Jared Drinkwater, 50, of Dallas, Texas. Drinkwater co-founded wood-smoked snack brand Low and Slow with Mike Zbuchalski in 2019. Responses have been edited for length and clarity. 

What was your day job or primary occupation when you started your side hustle?
I was a brand marketer at big companies for 20 years prior to starting Low and Slow, including seven at Frito-Lay. Most recently, I was the CMO of a portfolio company owned by Varsity Brands, the largest supplier of team sports gear in the U.S. I left that role in 2022 to work full-time on Low and Slow.

Starting a BBQ-inspired side hustle

When did you start your side hustle, and where did you find the inspiration for it?
While I’ve spent much of my career in the corporate world, starting a business has always been on my bucket list. Back in 2019, while at dinner with a good friend, the topic of how to create the perfect BBQ chip came up. It led to the insight that all BBQ snacks revolve around BBQ sauce seasoning.

Having spent 22 years living in Dallas and eating at some of the best BBQ joints in the world, I can say unequivocally that BBQ sauce, while great, is the least important aspect of an authentic BBQ experience. It’s all about the wood, the smoke and lots of patience. The next day, I covered a tray of chips with a rub I use on ribs and threw it into my backyard smoker. The family devoured them. After some research to confirm that no other company had ever smoked snacks, Low and Slow was born.

Figuring out how to smoke snacks at scale in the backyard

What were some of the first steps you took to get your side hustle off the ground? How much money/investment did it take to launch?
Since I knew I wouldn’t be able to supply retailers like Walmart and Costco with product from my backyard smoker, figuring out how to create a novel manufacturing process to smoke chips at scale was my first step. I’m a marketer by trade, not an engineer. So I presented the concept to Mike Zbuchalski, a friend and former Frito-Lay colleague who spent 22 years at the company. Mike was the head of global research and development for PepsiCo Foods before retiring in 2016 and lived a few miles away.

I remember watching Mike open a Ziplock bag of smoked chips. After getting a whiff of a delicious BBQ smell, he told me he’d tried to nail aroma at Frito for 15 years and could never crack the code. With many patents to his name, Mike built his career on snack innovation. He was interested in helping me figure out how to create shelf-stable smoked snacks. He’s been my partner on this journey from day one. I couldn’t have done any of this without him. 

Creating a snack brand that felt like a BBQ joint

It turns out this was a lot harder than I anticipated (maybe why no one has ever done it). After almost two years of trial and error in Mike’s backyard, and a lot of hickory wood, we finally cracked the code. Our immediate next step was to create killer branding, which was our biggest early expense (roughly $30,000). The goal was to create a brand that’s like a BBQ joint that smoked snacks instead of meat.

So instead of hiring ex-salty snack packaging design experts I got to know during my time at Frito, I hired a local hospitality-focused branding shop in Dallas called White Unicorn, which had a lot of experience with restaurant design. They absolutely crushed it, and their stellar design drove more early value for the company than I could have ever imagined. 

With our branding done, we earned proof of concept by smoking small batches by hand, filling them in printed bags I bought online and then selling them at a local farmers market one weekend in Plano, Texas. 

Tapping into a valuable personal network — and AI

Are there any free or paid resources that have been especially helpful for you in starting and running this business? 
By far the most valuable free resource I leveraged when starting my business was my personal network. As I said last year while teaching a marketing class at Southern Methodist University, a lot of people think the best time to start a business is when you’re young and don’t have a family to worry about financially. I think the opposite.

My time in corporate America provided me with the training needed to get something like this off the ground, and more so, the people I met over my 20-plus-year career in brand marketing without question helped me accelerate the business. Once finding out what I was up to, former colleagues who had gone on to work at some of the world’s biggest retailers, packaging companies, agencies, etc. all wanted to know how they could help. 

Over these past two years, AI has been another free resource that’s been life-changing for me and the business. It helps me with financial models, social media content creation and is a sounding board for branding decisions and everything in between. 

TikTok’s potential to grow a side hustle — fast

If you could go back in your business journey and change one process or approach, what would it be, and how do you wish you’d done it differently?
Hindsight is 20/20, and sometimes you can’t learn what works until you learn what doesn’t. But if I could go back in time, I would have made TikTok my first sales channel. No retail. No trade shows. Not even Amazon. TikTok is the most powerful discovery engine on the planet for emerging brands. Getting millions of views before you earn a spot on a shelf is a much easier path to success than sitting in aisle seven hoping someone notices you. 

When it comes to this specific business, what is something you’ve found particularly challenging and/or surprising that people who get into this type of work should be prepared for, but likely aren’t? 
I completely underestimated the level of physical labor required to get a Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) business off the ground from scratch. From lugging cases of cheese puffs to events, to building trade show displays, to standing on your feet for 12 hours a day passing out samples at Costco, to personally fulfilling thousands of online orders and pretty much everything in-between, it’s a lot on your body. I’d certainly advise entrepreneurs, young and old, to get in the best shape they can before diving in headfirst. 

From under $20,000 a month to mid-6 figure revenue

How long did it take you to see consistent monthly revenue? What does growth and revenue look like now? 
It took us about 12 months from launch to see more consistent revenue streams come in, which I primarily attribute to hiring my VP of Sales, Randy Kruse. Randy was one of the first salespeople at Dots Pretzels, which sold to the Hershey company in 2021. Randy’s know-how and extensive industry relationships served as a catalyst for our distribution wins and repeat business.  

Our growth since launching in a handful of stores in Texas back in July of 2023 has been significant. Low and Slow has gone from doing less than $20,000 in monthly revenue 18 months ago to mid six figures today, with that number growing quickly as new retail doors come online. With the momentum we’re seeing — particularly from national retail expansion and strong repeat rates — we see a clear path towards tripling the business (or more) in the near term. My goal is to be a $20 million business in the next 18 months. 

More than 4,000 stores, including Costco and Walmart

We are now in over 4,000 stores nationwide including Walmart Texas, Sam’s Club Texas, Home Depot, Home Goods and thousands of independent grocery and convenience stores. Just this past week, we launched our first ever rotation at more than 70 Costco warehouse locations across the Northeast with more on the way. But my favorite placement? The world BBQ hall of fame in Kansas City. We certainly haven’t earned our place on the walls in that building (yet), but the gift shop is a great first step.

The thrill of a side hustle created “out of thin air”

What do you enjoy most about running this business?
For me, the thrill of seeing something I created out of thin air in my backyard show up on shelves at the biggest retailers in the world like Walmart, Costco and 7-Eleven never gets old. Being my own boss and getting products and ideas to market faster than I ever have are good perks too.

But what I enjoy most is watching my kids take such an active role in the business. From flavor development, to working BBQ festivals and Costco sampling events, to telling me how embarrassing my social media posts are, they have been truly engaged from day one. I have no clue whether they’ll follow me into the world of entrepreneurship one day, but I do know they believe with hard work and creativity, they can turn anything they want into reality. 

What is your best piece of specific, actionable business advice?
Quitting a good job to start a business might sound simple, but the complexity is often overlooked. You should be able to describe how your product or service is different from everything else out there in three words or less. For us, it’s “We Smoke Snacks.” If your idea requires a ton of explanation, you’re going to have a tough time winning over consumers who are already overstimulated by information. In CPG it’s even harder, as your packaging needs to communicate this for you in a few seconds or less.

This Side Hustle Spotlight Q&A features Jared Drinkwater, 50, of Dallas, Texas. Drinkwater co-founded wood-smoked snack brand Low and Slow with Mike Zbuchalski in 2019. Responses have been edited for length and clarity. 

What was your day job or primary occupation when you started your side hustle?
I was a brand marketer at big companies for 20 years prior to starting Low and Slow, including seven at Frito-Lay. Most recently, I was the CMO of a portfolio company owned by Varsity Brands, the largest supplier of team sports gear in the U.S. I left that role in 2022 to work full-time on Low and Slow.

Starting a BBQ-inspired side hustle

When did you start your side hustle, and where did you find the inspiration for it?
While I’ve spent much of my career in the corporate world, starting a business has always been on my bucket list. Back in 2019, while at dinner with a good friend, the topic of how to create the perfect BBQ chip came up. It led to the insight that all BBQ snacks revolve around BBQ sauce seasoning.