A Chat With Justin Rashid, founder and president, American Spoon Foods
CS: How did you deal with it?
JR: We faced it head-on. We set up a sample table in our stores to show people how good these things were.
CS: What’s the biggest business mistake you ever made, and how did you deal with it?
JR: Oh, there have been so many. Overall I’d say the biggest mistakes you make are when things are good, right? And our company became too dependent on a small number of very large customers. And sometimes you think, well, I shouldn’t be selling too much to any one customer. But you don’t always think, I shouldn’t be selling to too many customers who are all in the same industry or similar industries or in the same geographic area. Because things can happen and they do. We had a situation like that, many years ago, where we were dependent on a small number of very large customers in similar industries and geographic regions. And when they got in trouble, we got in trouble. And we survived by dramatically cutting expenses so we could survive without them and rebuild.
