A Letter For Happy Collisions

Energy directed and gathered in one place

Tonight I rode solo into a big event with hundreds of people. My natural instinct is to be introverted and stay at home or do something by myself, so straying out in the opposite direction of that can be anxiety inducing. Trent Mano and I spoke this morning as we ran around a giant Whale in the middle of a roundabout intersection about how these events can be catalysts for what he termed “Happy Collisions”.

He wrote a great LinkedIn post about this concept as well and I have to say… I love it! It’s turned out to be prophetic as well - I’ve run into so many great people tonight. Some expected and some unexpected.

I’ve caught up with people I have talked to in a while, seen clients, and met a bunch of new interesting people. I love meeting interesting people, hearing their stories, and picking their brains (if they’ll allow).

By far the highlight of my night was meeting the founder of one of my all-time favorite brands and products. Almost every day after work or as an appetizer to dinner I crack open a bag of tortilla chips and grab some salsa for the fridge and snack. I’ve convinced myself and tell people I don’t have an addictive personality, but for coffee and chips and salsa I don’t think that’s true.

There is one brand of salsa I’ve been buying and eating regularly since I moved to Utah in 2015.

Salsa Queen

My lifetime value to them as a customer is probably over $2000 ($4.50/week x 52 weeks x 9 years). I’ve been buying their Green Roasted Tomatillo salsa since 2015 and sprinkle in a few of their other varieties as well (the creamy jalepeno and the pico are excellent as well).

This is me and the Salsa Queen. In fact, I learned that it’s now her legal name! She talked to me about how she’s a creative at heart, she just likes coming up with new recipes and trying things. Her favorite thing right now is just mixing two of her salsas together.

I learned so much more about her and her journey too. When she started the company she had only $3000 left in her bank account as a single mother raising kids in 2009. She made the original recipes in her kitchen and then built a brand and hustled her way into local retail grocers.

She built their own production facility when they got big enough right here in Salt Lake City. She’s spent 15 years building a business and gotten it to the point where she’s going national into major grocers. They think they can add another shift and double their revenue in 2025 after a sharp increase in order volume at the end of 2024.

Does it get any better than that? No.

I also collided with a shoe wear brand, called Kuru, and met the founder Bret, who invented actual new technology to go inside a shoe and support your heel. It’s a brilliantly simple solution, a polymer piece that’s molded into the heel and mid foot of the shoe that flexes and adapts to your foot shape as it experiences load. Fucking brilliant. Sometimes the simplest solutions are the most elegant and effective.

He’s also been building the company for 10+ years (I forget the exact timeline). The commitment and longevity to seeing and it through is just the most impressive thing ever.

I’ll live these people anonymous for now - but I also ran into 2 whole people that subscribe to this project and read it regularly and they told me how much they like reading it. Ok, I guess that could be better. That’s the actual best.

I’m still in this mindset that just nobody real reads this, that when I post a letter it just goes off into the ether of the interwebs. I need to change that. The happy collisions tonight have taught me that for certain.

Hopefully I still have a few more great collisions to make tonight and throughout the week. I’m sure I will and I couldn’t be more grateful for it.

With love and deep appreciation,

-Andrew