Use the viral moment to grow
“Whenever you have a viral moment or a success like that, it's not forever. So you better take that, use it, and then use it to grow because that's not gonna sustain.”
Founder conversationBuilder <$5m
Funding for Hot Sauce Brands: A $20K Offer Repaid at 1.2x or 1.5x, Accepted on Camera
A chef-founder explains how one viral order shaped his sales, why a $200K ask shrank, and how a repayment offer was sized to fund more in-store demos.
Josue Rivas · Savir Foods
Published November 4, 2026What you’ll learn
Josue Rivas, a chef who founded the Austin hot sauce company Savir Foods, explains how a Hot Ones order drove most of his first-year sales and how he has tried to widen the customer base since. Nathan Latka tests his funding request against his sales and margins, moves from equity to a repayment structure sized to monthly sales, and makes a $20,000 offer repaid at 1.2x within 12 months or 1.5x within 24 months, which the founder accepts on camera.
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Cutting reliance on one buyer
“Right. So now I moved to about maybe 80 being mine and 20 being them.”
Pricing low to win shelf volume
“So we strategically priced it a little lower at Central Market. So it moves.”
Why a percent-of-revenue structure
“That's what I was leaning towards is we could sort of do revenue financing, right? So you pay me back a percent of revenues.”
Sizing repayment to monthly sales
“If you're servicing a $3,000 repayment to me on $12,000 of total sales, you're paying like 25% of your monthly revenue back to me. That is a very hard amount of debt to service.”
Resource files
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Video
Josue Rivas
Owner · Savir Foods
- Company revenue
- $250K
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