It was November of 2006 that Todd Ross sprung from an early morning slumber and exclaimed, “I have a GREAT IDEA!”  After several moments of clutching at her chest and struggling to regain her composure from the rude awakening, Todd’s wife Wendy hesitantly asked what he was talking about.  His reply wasn’t exactly something that would set the world on fire…well, in some ways that is exactly what it would do.  The vision that came to Todd was the name and label design of a Novelty Hot Sauce called Ass Murdering Hot Sauce.  Most people would question, “Why hot sauce?”  The answer to that question becomes apparent as we learn more about Todd’s connection to Orlando Tex-Mex Restaurateur Brian Wheeler and the ever-so-popular franchise, Tijuana Flats.

When Tijuana Flats was just starting out, Brian enlisted Todd’s artistic ability for the creation of 3 of the company’s most popular and creative hot sauce label designs to date.  Over 13 years later and these hot sauces are still some of the best selling sauces around the world as well as prominently displayed in all of the Tijuana Flats restaurants.  So when Todd’s epiphany hit him, he exploded in excitement because his prior experience told him that the idea was highly marketable and consumers would respond favorably to it. 

When asked about the controversial name of the product, Todd and Wendy chuckle and collectively say that the play on words that ties seamlessly into the label design is what makes their hot sauce such fun.  Wendy continues, “The label has a donkey out cold on it’s back with its legs in the air, a half drunk bottle of hot sauce leaking on the ground and flames shooting out of the donkey’s hind quarters…..who wouldn’t get a kick out of the word play especially when the biblical reference of a donkey is an ass?"  Even so, they have made concessions by offering options that retailers can purchase like a censored version of the label that reads ‘A#! Murdering Hot Sauce’ for the more conservative outlets or branding the hot sauce label with the retailer’s contact information as well as do-it-yourself label application discounts.  Todd explains, “We wanted to be flexible for our retailers and allow them to sell the product the way they feel is most appropriate”.    

An idea is one thing but developing a product from concept to reality is no small feat especially for a small start-up with limited funds and resources.  Todd advises, “You have to be discipline, dedicated, patient and most importantly, believe in yourself.  It took us the good part of a year to acquire the various bits of knowledge that we needed to bring this idea to fruition and we still have a lot more to do.” He continues, “It is absolutely critical that you have dogged determination and never let the naysayer’s talk you out of chasing your dream.  I can’t begin to tell you how many times we presented our idea to people that liked the concept but gave us one of those ‘you’re living in a dream world’ looks to us when we talked about professionally producing the sauce.  It’s a great feeling to show the finished product to those same people and watch their expression now.  I think, in a lot of ways, it inspires them to rethink a dream that they thought or were told was out of their reach.  I’m not a big fan of boundaries or limitations on positive goals or objectives.  Just think of where we would be if some of the great innovators listened to the people that said they couldn’t accomplish something and just quit.  Not that we’re solving world hunger here but I do hope our story inspires others to chase their dreams and gives them the courage to ignore the people trying to hold them back from achieving those dreams.”

The next step for these burgeoning entrepreneurs was to create a recipe that was as unique as their label.  Wendy recalls, “Todd researched multiple hot sauce recipes online and was chatting with numerous Chile Heads [Hot Sauce Aficionados] for weeks on end.”  Todd interjects, “I wanted to get a feel for what people liked in their sauces and also try to find something that would distinguish our sauce from the rest of the pack.  Our first attempt tasted so great that we second guessed ourselves and tried four other concoctions; none of which tasted nearly as good as that first batch.  We eventually came to our senses and decided on the first recipe.”  Not wanting to let their personal bias cloud their decision, the Ross’ assembled a group of Family and Friends [Victims] for a blind taste test comparison against seven other popular sauces on the market.  Todd proudly brags, “We knew we were onto something great when the rating cards were tallied and our sauce beat all of the other sauces hands down without anyone knowing which sauce was ours.  The Dijon mustard base of the sauce is a unique and delightful surprise for all those that dare to venture past the sting of the Jalapeno, Serrano and Habaneras peppers.”  Todd continued, “This was a really fun time in our sauce’s development because we could involve our kids, Clayton and Allison, as well as other Family members, Friends, Neighbors and work associates; also, having an excuse to eat massive quantities of burritos is always a good thing in my book.  It was the first time in the sauce’s long development that we had something tangible that people could see, feel, touch, smell and taste the whole package; the positive responses were extremely encouraging.”

The last major hurdle the Ross’ had to overcome was to create a name for their blossoming company.  Surely this would be the easiest part of the whole journey…right?  Todd confesses, “I think most people would laugh at how difficult this was for me and the amount of time I spent thinking of a name for our company but my obsessive compulsive nature simply won’t allow me to put something out there that isn’t the best that it can be.  The other issue was that I didn’t want our company name to limit us to just selling hot sauce.  During the entire time the hot sauce was being developed, I felt more alive then I have in a long time.  This creative awakening rekindled the artistic side of me that I had neglected for over a decade.  It was a fantastic feeling that ignited a flame inside of me and I wanted to form a company that would help others get that passion back in their own lives.  It was with this understanding that we sought a name for our company and web store that would focus on the promotion of a variety of diverse blue collar, working class creations.” 

Confident that their recently envisioned, highly focused mission statement would make finding a clever company name easy; Todd commenced dot com registration searches that he felt would be appropriate for their services.  Todd recalls, “I eagerly typed in ‘merchant.com’; nope, taken.  O.k., how about ‘seller.com’; nope, taken.  Alright, let’s see if ‘capitalistpig.com’ is available; nope, taken.  How about ‘duck-quacking-in-a-northern-wind-with-a-blindfold-on.com’; nope, taken.  Frustration began to set-in as I began to realize that this was not going to be as easy as I initially thought it was going to be.  Over the next few weeks, we came to the conclusion that we would have to create our own word that would, for one reason or another, tie into our mission statement.  Inspiration struck once again and ‘Bisummo’ was established as the company name.  We liked it because it was a short, catchy name that translates well on the internet and once people understand how to pronounce it properly, buy-some-mo [mo: slang for more], it becomes pretty apparent what it means.  We even created a slogan:  Bisummo cause we’re tired of being po!  It’s a fun name that defines the mission statement of our company extremely well and is very marketable.”

Bisummo is currently in discussions with Tijuana Flats to distribute Ass Murdering Hot Sauce through all of their franchises and web store as well as being featured on the hot sauce bars in each of their restaurants.  The company is also working on distribution agreements with several other well known restaurant chains, hot sauce stores, web stores, novelty gift shops, fresh markets and truck stop gas station chains.  Todd and Wendy also see enormous return on investment potential for ambitious ‘Mom & Pop’ operations selling to their local markets.  For now, Bisummo’s main objective is to spread the word about their sauce but in the coming months they hope to have their web store (Bisummo.com) up and running.  In addition, they hope to expand their current offerings from just hot sauce to a variety of interesting products by working class artisans.  Todd concludes, “We have a long way to go but keep checking in on our progress; the evolution of Bisummo promises to be an interesting and inspiring story to follow.”

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